By Kemo Cham
[First published on www.politicosl.com] Sierra Leone stands a
great chance to end the transmission of the HIV virus ahead of the UN targeted
date of 2030, the country director of UNAIDS has said.
Dr Michael Frank Gboun said that all
that’s needed for the country to achieve its goal is for every stakeholder to
be fully involved in efforts to get people to know their status and those found
positive go for treatment.
“Ending HIV/AIDS is possible. It’s
not like we can’t have new infections…the point is to ensure prevention of
transmission through treatment,” he said.
Dr Gboun was speaking in an
interview with Politico in the context of the high level UN summit on the
global AIDS pandemic. The New York meeting held between June 6 and 10 was
designed to focus attention on the importance of accelerating the response to
HIV over the next five years and set the world on course to end the AIDS
epidemic by 2030 as part of the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). UN
Member States were also to adopt a Political Declaration of Commitment on
Ending AIDS.
Sierra Leone was represented by a
delegation headed by the Minister of Health and Sanitation, Dr Abubakarr
Fofanah.
The UN targets 2030 as part of its
fast track strategy in ending the epidemic. This approach was informed by a
report in November 2014 warning of an explosion of the three-decade old
epidemic if urgent actions were not taken.
The Fast-Track approach emphasizes
the need to focus on the counties, cities, districts and other local
communities most affected by HIV and recommends that resources be concentrated
on the areas with the greatest impact.
Sierra Leone’s ambitious National
HIV/AIDS strategy targets 2020 to end the epidemic as a public health threat.
The country is taking advantage of the UN’s approach to addressing the epidemic
which lays emphasis on using treatment as prevention.
Experts have argued that with
reliable and regular treatment the chance of transmission of the virus become
low. Antiretroviral drugs, the medications used to treat HIV/AIDS patients,
basically works by keeping the level of HIV in your body low, thereby lowering
the chance of transmission to another person. The current World Health
Organization guideline recommends ART [antiretroviral therapy] for all people
with HIV as soon as possible after diagnosis without any restrictions of CD4
counts.
In Sierra Leone, officially there
are 54, 000 people living with HIV/AIDS, according to figures from the National
AIDS Secretariat (NAS). Of this only 14, 000 are on ART. The problem, said Dr
Gboun, is that majority of the 54, 000 people living with the virus do not know
their status.
Part of the national strategic plan
is extensive sensitization geared towards having every Sierra Leonean go for
test and know their HIV status, said the Nigerian UNAIDS country director who
has served the UN agency in a number of countries, including Zimbabwe, where he
served last before Sierra Leone.
“The world is saying 2030, Sierra
Leone is saying 2020 because our prevalence is manageable, our epidemic is very
low,” he said.
According to NAS figures, Sierra
Leone has over the last five years revolved around 1.5 percent prevalence rate
of the viral disease. This is impressive to a large extent. But campaigners
fear that lack of awareness among the population poses a major risk.
Only 36 percent of the 54, 000
people who are thought to be living with the virus know their status, according
to the UNAIDS.
Six districts have been identified
as having high HIV burden in Sierra Leone. These are: the Western Area Urban
and Rural, Bombali, Tonkolili, Bo, and Kenema.
Ahead of the New York meeting, the
UNAIDS, in collaboration with NAS, convened a multi-stakeholder consultative
meeting to develop an annual multisectoral fast tracked work plans for each of
these district. That meeting also prepared a position paper on how the country
intends to attain its 2020 target of ending HIV transmission.
Dr Gboun said the plan is to
concentrate most of the available resources in these districts with emphasis on
behavioral communications on ending HIV transmission.
(C) Politico 29/06/16
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