KATHMANDU: Combat HIV/AIDS programmes are facing an uncertain future in the country.

Donors are reluctant to pump in more funds, thanks to lack of comprehensive policies, under the guidance of the Ministry of Health and Population (MoHP).

The killer disease, which initially came to the fore in the early 1980s in the Western nations, has since struck indiscriminately across the world, including many least developed countries like Nepal.

Initially, funds have never been in short supply owing to the patronage of developed nations.

Though the government has been entrusted with the onerous task of running these programmes single-handedly, it has, strangely enough, not allocated even one per cent of its health budget to tackle the scourge.

Donor agencies have alerted MoHP and its allied bodies like HIV/AIDS and STI Control Development Board and National Centre for AIDS and STD Control (NCASC) to formulate foolproof strategies to achieve the goals. Global Fund, an INGO, has recently turned down the nation's plea for additional funds. The reason: Lack of vision on the part of the government to monitor the campaign.

The powers-that-be also stand accused of outsourcing the programmes to “dysfunctional NGOs”, who reportedly did precious little to justify their expensive ways and means. The INGO has been emphasising that the state needs to ensure that the drive translates to concrete action on the ground. It has sent a letter to MoHP, urging it be “more responsible

towards its work”.

Presently, the capital-intensive campaign is funded by Global Fund, DFID and UNDP along with host of international donor agencies, who also provide technical know-how to the government.

Dambar Ghimire, director, HIV/AIDS and STI Control Development Board, maintained that the halt in the cash flow was a temporary and one-off occurrence. He attributed it to certain technical glitches, which will be “rectified by December 28”.

He, in turn, accused Global Fund of the latter's inconsistency in complying with the funding guidelines “It wanted us to involve the civil society instead of ‘expensive’ NGOs last year.

But when we did that this year, it still found fault with us,” alleged Ghimire.

He reasoned that the government could not take sole responsibility for such a lofty cause.

On December 1, the World AIDS Day was observed, harping on the apt slogan “Universal Access and Human Right”.

Will this ever be implemented in Nepal? That still remains the big question.

The MoHP data reveals that 14,787 people are infected with HIV till mid-October. And most of them have little access to healthcare facilities. Dr KK Rai, director, NCASC, alleged that various INGOs were influencing Global Fund not to allocate more money to Nepal. But, he had no clinching evidence to back his assertions.

“We'll look for alternative funding agencies,” he maintained. Rajiv Kafle, president, Nepal Association of People Living with HIV, blamed the lack of political will for the sorry state of affairs.

“The government needs to be more even-handed with the budget. Besides, the proposals to donor agencies should be ratified by

experts,” explained Kafle.

He also felt that worldwide focus on HIV/AIDS has been diffused of late.

“And the impact will only be felt after 2012,” he added.

UNAIDS figures revealed that the number of HIV+ across the world was 33 million in 2007. Around two million died last year.

The World Health Organisation maintains that the spread of the disease has come down by 17 per cent in the past eight years. The corresponding figure for South Asia, though, is only 10 per cent.