Spanish Health Care Spending On AIDS

Over the past two years, the Spanish Health Ministry has spent 95-110billion pesetas ($732.4-$848.1 million) on the treatment of HIV and AIDS, or equal to around 3% of its total budget, reports the Spanish daily newspaper Cinco Dias.

And in 1997, expenditure on the treatment of this illness will rise another 25 billion pesetas, according to Francisco Parras, general secretary for the country's national AIDS program. This is compared with the 15 billion pesetas that is estimated to have been spent on antiviral treatments in 1996. Of the 25 billion pesetas, 10 billion pesetas will be spent on the cost of the new HIV/AIDS treatments, ie protease inhibitors (Marketletters passim), that have recently become available.

The pharmaceutical companies that manufacture the new treatments, however, point out that the increase in spending now on combination therapy, which includes the protease inhibitors, will result in lower health care spending in the future due to a reduction in hospital stays.