The government is putting on a brave face over reports that it has lost significant financing from the Global Fund to Fight Aids, Tuberculosis and Malaria but behind the scenes is a picture of growing unease.

In a dossier prepared by a team of technical experts and presented to senior officials in the ministries of health and finance, the future of ARV treatment hangs in the balance unless the government comes to bridge a huge gap or scouts for new donors.

A tussle over the control of resources, overlapping tasks, and a budget that did not match with the activities, might have cost the country the much needed Global Fund money for the purchase of the life prolonging anti-retro viral drugs.

The country’s appeal to the Global Fund for HIV/AIDS, Tuberculosis, and Malaria for Round 9 funds totalling 73 million for HIV/AIDS programmes was rejected, sending the country into a serious funding crisis for its ARV programme.

Government officials might be presenting to the public a very successful HIV treatment programme, but it is now emerging that they are finding it difficult to cope with the increasing number of people coming onto to the treatment program.

Senior government officials confided that they are unable to offer steady supply of antiretroviral drugs to those who need them as the numbers are overwhelming.

In 1999 when James Onyango walked into his doctor’s clinic and was told that he might have to start taking antiretroviral drugs, he knew he was a dead man. Earning a modest salary, it was not going to be possible for him to raise over Sh 60,000 required for a monthly dose of the drugs.

He left the doctor’s place heartbroken, having resigned to fate. Death for him was just around the corner.