Any HIV positive person will be able to get antiretroviral medicine irrespective of their CD4 count by September.
Treasury has allocated an extra R1bn to finance this “universal test and treat” (UTT) programme, Health Minister Aaron Motsoaledi announced during his Budget speech in Parliament on Tuesday.
The total health budget for 2016/17 is R183.6-bn, but there has been no increase in allocation to the National Health Insurance (NHI) although the minister stressed that government was committed to its introduction.
“There isn’t a pot of gold for the NHI. It requires reorganising money that is already there,” said Motsoaledi, adding that employers got around R16bn in tax incentives for staff medical aid subsidies while around medical schemes had around R43bn in reserves.
Government decided to adopt UTT after research showed that it would save money in the long term, mainly because it radically reduces the chance of an HIV positive person passing the virus to others when they are on treatment and their viral loads are undetectable.
The health department has also launched an application that anyone can download to address medicine stock-outs.
About 60% of all clinics have already started to use the stock visibility system, which monitors medicine stocks.
Patients who download the app and experience stockouts can simply press a button and notify Pretoria, said Motsoaledi.