NEWS: ‘We are losing to HIV/Aids’

‘We are losing to HIV/Aids’

Saturday, May 9, 2009 from MONITOR ONLINE

Uganda appears to be losing the fight to stem increasing HIV infections in spite of billions of shillings that have been thrown at the effort, it has emerged.

While the Ministry of Health estimates that 1.1 million people are suspected to be affected by condition, representing 3.7% of the estimated 30 million Ugandans, the shadow minister for health, Dr Francis Epetait puts the number of people suspected to be infected with the virus that causes Aids at three million.

300,000 of them have progressed from infection to full blown sickness. Just half of that number are on life-saving anti-retroviral drugs.

According to the Uganda Aids Commission, there are 135,000 new infections occurring every year especially at household level where there is a high level of discordance.

While addressing journalists at the closure of a three day national HIV/Aids counselling conference on Friday at Hotel Africana, Dr Sam Okware, the commissioner for community health at the health ministry said, “New infections keep outstripping the capacity to treat them and prevent Aids related deaths. The cost of treatment is very high. It costs $14,000 to treat an individual per year. We are fighting a losing battle.”

Dr Okware’s comments will be most disheartening especially to President Museveni who personally led a late 1980s’ awareness-raising offensive that resulting in Uganda bringing down prevalence rate to as low 6%. The country was viewed as a success story in the war against the scourge, now that seems to have been reversed.

While several mitigation measures have been tried which include, the ABC strategy which encouraged abstinence, being faithful to one sexual partner and condom use, together with companies coming up with HIV/Aids work place policies, which was aimed at ensuring that victims are not discriminated against, are given equal employment opportunities, access to care and treatment remains a challenge.

And this despite an attempt to take health services closer to the communities through voluntary home counselling and testing which has also scaled down since it was started three years ago because of the high costs involved.

The Uganda Aids Control programme is now focusing on scaling up psycho-social support through pre and post-test counselling to ensure that the people found negative are encouraged to remain negative and those found positive are encouraged to accept the situation and asked not to spread the virus to the uninfected people.The other option government is considering is legislation that would criminalise transmission of HIV/Aids.

But according to Dr Zainab Akol, a manager at the national Aids control programme, “the bill is unrealistic. HIV positive people should have been consulted because so many people are not aware of their status.”

A study conducted in Kawempe, Kampala in 2008 by a Makerere University anthropologist, Dr Stella Nyanzi, on the cultural perceptions of widowhood, reveal a rise in stigma among HIV/Aids infected persons especially the elderly.

While presenting her research findings at the Childhood Illnesses and Development Centre at Mulago on May 5, she said at Mengo Hospital where she conducted part of the study, young widows some of whom had lost multiple sexual partners, had scared away elderly women and men from accessing treatment. The elderly withdrew because whenever they went for treatment, the young taunted them: that they are too old to have acquired HIV.

According to the Aids control programme, 80% of new infections are sexually transmitted while 19% is from mother to child transmission. 60% of the infected people are discordant while only 25% of the population has received counselling and testing.

An Aids indicator survey is planned to be conducted before the end of the year to ascertain as close possible to the actual number of infected people.

Dr Epetait told Sunday Monitor that there has been a policy shift emphasising treatment which is more expensive as opposed to prevention. “Very little is being done to educate the public. There are very few condoms in supply and even the hand gloves are not enough in health facilities which exposes health workers to the disease.”

He said Parliament passed a Shs60 billion budget allocation to Quality Chemicals, the company that produces ARVs and malaria drugs but part of the money was diverted by the ministry for salary enhancement. “There is scarcity of ARVs. Once a patient has been put on treatment, it should continue, once it stops the resistance to the drugs increases which means that the regimen has to change. The number of people is increasing.”