MOSCOW, January 1. /TASS/. The Federal Register of HIV patients, set to be launched in Russia’s regions on January 1, will help provide patients with medicine, Health Ministry Spokesman Oleg Salagai told TASS.

"Any individual diagnosed with HIV should be interested in being included in this register since he or she will receive medicine on this basis," Salagai explained.

Russian Health Minister Veronika Skvortsova noted earlier that launching such a register would streamline the allocation of diagnostic and medical resources as well as standardize statistics so that unified data could be provided to international organizations.

 

Targeted medicine purchases

 

"The first and most important task is to assess and collect full information on how many HIV patients we have, what treatment plans have been arranged for them, what medicines have been prescribed to them," Deputy Health Minister Sergei Krayevoi told TASS.

According to the ministry, a total of 824,000 HIV patients have been registered in Russia. The average therapy coverage is 40%.

Director of the Medication Support Department of Russia’s Health Ministry Yelena Maksimkina earlier told TASS that the launch of the HIV patient register and the move towards centralized purchases of HIV medications will allow to initiate targeted purchases depending on the need of every patient included in the register.

"We don’t order any medicine without having in mind a certain patient anymore. In fact, we have made doctors reconsider the treatment procedure. We have just received applications from some patients using specific treatment plans. There are also separate groups that consist of children and pregnant women," she added.

 

Compulsory inclusion in the register rejected

 

At the same time, Salagai said that "the Health Ministry does not share the idea that all patients should be included in the register against their will." The Justice Ministry earlier also gave a negative assessment of a draft law on the compulsory registration of HIV patients that would set responsibility for avoiding registration.