Country Doing Well in Universal Access
By, Trading Markets.com, October 9, 2007
Panos Southern African HIV/AIDS regional programme manager, Lilian Chigona, recently came to Botswana to brief the media about Universal Access.
Chigona briefed the media about Universal Access, which "is the right and ability to receive comprehensive, uniform and an affordable set of confidential and appropriate health services. The three aspects of the programme are prevention, treatment, care and support."
Present at the workshop were representatives of different organisations amongst them, National AIDS Coordinating Agency (NACA), the National ARV Therapy Programme, called MASA and Botswana Network on Ethics, Law and HIV/AIDS BONELA, who were afforded the opportunity to brief the media on the progress of Botswana on the Universal Access issue.
The meeting heard that the Botswana tended to concentrate on treatment while prevention and the care and support aspects were overlooked.
To emphasize the importance of other aspects when comes to dealing with HIV/AIDS, Chigona gave an example of Angola and Zambia.
She said that Angola had the lowest prevalence HIV rate.
"With the low prevalence in Angola the country could invest less on treatment and focus more on prevention to combat incident rates. On the other hand, Zambia needed to invest more on both treatment and prevention to combat both the high incidence and prevalence rates.
Botswana' prevention efforts seem to be lagging behind, but with the on-going research on the Truvada Pill (a combination of two ARV drugs that researchers think might prevent HIV) the country is coming to the party.
Chigona went on to point out that although the treatment issue was being addressed there are still people not adhering to the medication because of religious beliefs while others think that they have been cured once the ARV starts working on them.
"There are some people who tend to think that they have been cured once the HIV related symptoms disappear after they have taken the drugs for some time, while others are told by their pastors that they have been cured when that is not the truth."
These people usually return to hospitals when too ill and are put on the second line of treatment.
"But once you start resisting the second it's over for you. In Zambia, there are only two lines of treatment," said Chigona.
The meeting heard that Botswana is one of the few lucky African countries which provide the third line of treatment, as most countries only give the first and second line of treatment. But once one is resistant to the third line of treatment, "it's over".
Chigona appealed to the media to avoid "AIDS Fatigue" as the battle is still far from over. She also asked the journalists to always make sure to communicate the correct health information.
Joshua Machao, ARV' Coordinator at Masa Antiretroviral Therapy, said that in June 2006 at the Botswana United General Assembly High Level Meeting on HIV/AIDS, they had agreed to work towards the goal of "Universal Access to comprehensive prevention programmes, treatment, care and support by 2010."
In terms of accessing treatment Botswana accounts for Over 90, 478 people on ART.
"By July 2007 Botswana was providing 6,882, about 9% of children with HIV treatment. In a survey that was conducted in 2004 it was also discovered that stigmatization attitudes are lowering in Botswana and this was due to the fact that treatment access helps to reduce HIV stigma."
Oratile Moseki of BONELA revealed that people most at risk of contacting HIV are Sex Workers, men having sex with other men, children born from HIV positive mothers, prisoners, partners of persons living with HIV and gay men.
Despite being hailed a success story in other areas, Moseki observed that Botswana was behind in her response to the most 'at-risk' groups and it has been proven by the National Spending Assessment commissioned by NACA that there is zero spending on these groups.
"The national response to date is the prevention of mother to child programme (PMTCT), routine HIV testing, TB monitoring & control, home based care programmes, ARV Programmes and the multi-sectoral approach policed by National AIDS Council & facilitated by National AIDS Coordinating Agency (NACA)," she said.
Panos works with the media and other communicators to foster debate on under-reported, misrepresented or misunderstood development issues.
Their headquarters are in London with branches in Paris, the Caribbean, South Asia, East Africa, West Africa, Southern Africa and Canada; Panos Southern Africa is based in Lusaka, Zambia with HIV/AIDS issues at the forefront of all agendas in all the Panos branches.
Source: http://www.tradingmarkets.com/.site/news/Stock%20News/683578/
Panos Southern African HIV/AIDS regional programme manager, Lilian Chigona, recently came to Botswana to brief the media about Universal Access.
Chigona briefed the media about Universal Access, which "is the right and ability to receive comprehensive, uniform and an affordable set of confidential and appropriate health services. The three aspects of the programme are prevention, treatment, care and support."
Present at the workshop were representatives of different organisations amongst them, National AIDS Coordinating Agency (NACA), the National ARV Therapy Programme, called MASA and Botswana Network on Ethics, Law and HIV/AIDS BONELA, who were afforded the opportunity to brief the media on the progress of Botswana on the Universal Access issue.
The meeting heard that the Botswana tended to concentrate on treatment while prevention and the care and support aspects were overlooked.
To emphasize the importance of other aspects when comes to dealing with HIV/AIDS, Chigona gave an example of Angola and Zambia.
She said that Angola had the lowest prevalence HIV rate.
"With the low prevalence in Angola the country could invest less on treatment and focus more on prevention to combat incident rates. On the other hand, Zambia needed to invest more on both treatment and prevention to combat both the high incidence and prevalence rates.
Botswana' prevention efforts seem to be lagging behind, but with the on-going research on the Truvada Pill (a combination of two ARV drugs that researchers think might prevent HIV) the country is coming to the party.
Chigona went on to point out that although the treatment issue was being addressed there are still people not adhering to the medication because of religious beliefs while others think that they have been cured once the ARV starts working on them.
"There are some people who tend to think that they have been cured once the HIV related symptoms disappear after they have taken the drugs for some time, while others are told by their pastors that they have been cured when that is not the truth."
These people usually return to hospitals when too ill and are put on the second line of treatment.
"But once you start resisting the second it's over for you. In Zambia, there are only two lines of treatment," said Chigona.
The meeting heard that Botswana is one of the few lucky African countries which provide the third line of treatment, as most countries only give the first and second line of treatment. But once one is resistant to the third line of treatment, "it's over".
Chigona appealed to the media to avoid "AIDS Fatigue" as the battle is still far from over. She also asked the journalists to always make sure to communicate the correct health information.
Joshua Machao, ARV' Coordinator at Masa Antiretroviral Therapy, said that in June 2006 at the Botswana United General Assembly High Level Meeting on HIV/AIDS, they had agreed to work towards the goal of "Universal Access to comprehensive prevention programmes, treatment, care and support by 2010."
In terms of accessing treatment Botswana accounts for Over 90, 478 people on ART.
"By July 2007 Botswana was providing 6,882, about 9% of children with HIV treatment. In a survey that was conducted in 2004 it was also discovered that stigmatization attitudes are lowering in Botswana and this was due to the fact that treatment access helps to reduce HIV stigma."
Oratile Moseki of BONELA revealed that people most at risk of contacting HIV are Sex Workers, men having sex with other men, children born from HIV positive mothers, prisoners, partners of persons living with HIV and gay men.
Despite being hailed a success story in other areas, Moseki observed that Botswana was behind in her response to the most 'at-risk' groups and it has been proven by the National Spending Assessment commissioned by NACA that there is zero spending on these groups.
"The national response to date is the prevention of mother to child programme (PMTCT), routine HIV testing, TB monitoring & control, home based care programmes, ARV Programmes and the multi-sectoral approach policed by National AIDS Council & facilitated by National AIDS Coordinating Agency (NACA)," she said.
Panos works with the media and other communicators to foster debate on under-reported, misrepresented or misunderstood development issues.
Their headquarters are in London with branches in Paris, the Caribbean, South Asia, East Africa, West Africa, Southern Africa and Canada; Panos Southern Africa is based in Lusaka, Zambia with HIV/AIDS issues at the forefront of all agendas in all the Panos branches.
Source: http://www.tradingmarkets.com/.site/news/Stock%20News/683578/
posted by AIDS-Care-Watch at 2:12 pm
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