FRANKFORT, Ky. (AP) — Kentucky’s low-income AIDS patients face the longest waiting list in the country for a government program that offers free or low-cost drugs to fight the disease.

Kentucky has more than 1,200 people enrolled in its program for low-income HIV and AIDS patients. But the Lexington Herald-Leader reports nearly 100 patients are on a waiting list that started in June for the Kentucky AIDS Drug Assistance Program.

“We have 20 to 30 people coming in every month, and everyone who comes in goes on the waiting list,” Sigga Jagne, the state’s HIV/AIDS program manager, told the newspaper. “Everyone who is on the waiting list now, we don’t know how long they’re going to be there. Nobody is coming off the list.”

Demand for the program has increased during the recession, which comes at a time when federal funding has decreased and state funding has dried up. Eight states had waiting lists as of last month. Nebraska had the next longest after Kentucky, with 75 people.

Drugs necessary to fight HIV and AIDS can cost as much as $10,000 per person each year. Advocates say delays in treatment can be lethal, and patients who miss doses once they start risk building immunities to the drugs.

“This program makes every difference in quality of life, said Bobby Edelen, a Louisville health activist who is also HIV-positive. “People who get their medications are not always putting out fires, as it were, and rushing to the emergency room for treatment.”

Kentucky has had 5,015 reported AIDS cases since 1982 — mostly among patients living near Louisville or Lexington. Just more than 2,700 of those patients are presumed to be still alive, the newspaper reported.

State officials say new drugs can help AIDS and HIV patients live longer lives than previously. But they’re expensive. Just one 30-day supply of the anti-retroviral drug Reyataz could cost an uninsured person $1,032, officials said. Program officials are able to get the same for about $670.

Still, federal funding has shrunk from about $4.8 million in 2005 to about $4.5 million this year. Meanwhile, Kentucky’s contribution ended in 2007.

State officials told the newspaper it’s uncertain how much it would cost to clear the program’s waiting list.

“But the state has an obligation to take care of those who cannot care for themselves, and that includes low-income AIDS patients,” state Rep. Tom Burch, a Louisville Democrat and chairman of the House Health and Welfare Committee, said. “Plus, it’s extremely shortsighted to cut a preventive drug program like this. If somebody goes into full-blown AIDS and has to be hospitalized, now we’re all spending the big bucks.”