Fox Vows AIDS Patient Subsidies
The government will foot the bill for medication for all Mexicans with AIDS, President Vicente Fox said Tuesday.
About 10,000 Mexican AIDS patients who can’t afford to pay for their own treatment already receive government funding for medications. It wasn’t clear exactly how many more patients would receive subsidies under Fox’s plan, however.
The health department estimates that between 116,000 and 177,000 Mexicans were living with the human immunodeficiency virus or acquired immune deficiency syndrome last year and that 16,231 new cases were identified in 2002.
The department’s 2002 report on the spread of AIDS noted that 17 of every 100,000 Mexican men between the ages of 25 and 44 have either HIV or AIDS, while the rate for women is three of every 100,000. An estimated 1.9 million people in Latin America have been infected with HIV or have developed AIDS.
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