Africa-Press – Eswatini. The ministry of health has worked tirelessly in the fight to end AIDS by 2030.
The results of this fight are already evident by the country’s achievement of the 95-95-95 targets.
Several surveys are being conducted in the country and produce data that is used for programming. One of which, being the data from the Eswatini HIV Recent Infection Surveillance (EHRIS), which continues to show a high proportion of recently tested HIV+ individuals reclassified as long-term infections after viral load processing which is a proxy for repeat testing.
These individuals present with Viral Load results less than 1 000 copies/mL at the point of HIV diagnosis, an indication of Viral Load suppression.
On September 26, the Deputy Director of clinical services from the ministry of health launched a “Be You (Yiba nguwe)” campaign, which has been designed to address defaulting and repeat testing challenges among known PLHIV.
The aim of this campaign is to educate HIV+ clients especially those who disengage from care on how they can be supported back to care without retesting.
The Be.U (Yiba Nguwe) campaign talks to an HIV positive patient, accepting and owning his/her HIV positive status, then being responsible through disclosure of HIV+ status and adherence to treatment.
In her speech, the deputy director of clinical services, mentioned that the launch was a culmination of grim determination, perseverance, singleness of purpose and above all, a steadfast affirmation that as a country we are doing well in HIV response evident by being one of the few countries that have attained 95-95-95 targets.
She also highlighted that this enormous national victory of achieving the had now presented the country with a corollary challenge, in that as a country we have to come up with strategies of sustaining such exciting gains as we accelerate towards Epidemic control.
The ‘Be You (Yiba Nguwe)’ campaign identified a number of barriers or reasons that causes long term HIV positive clients to retest. One of which being transferring to a new facility: people change residence for different reasons, including new jobs, education (moving from home to a tertiary institution).
When transferring to a new site, other cients do not disclose their HIV positive status due to fear of being reffered back to their facilities where they were initiated on ART. So instead of disclosing their status, they opt to present as unknown HIV status, so that they can test and receive their treatment as newly diagnosed.
Some of the people living with HIV, sometimes disengage from care due to different reasons and when they want to reengage to care, they come to the facility and present themselves as people with an unknown HIV status so that they can be tested and classified as newly diagnosed HIV+. Health care workers’ attitudes has also been highlighted as one of the barriers that causes PLHIV not to disclose their HIV positive status and opt for retesting.
Messages targeting Health care workers have been developed to address this barriers and they will be distributed in all facilities that offer care and treatment services.
Fear of disclosing HIV+ status to a new partner has also been highlighted as a factor that makes people living with HIV to retest. People change relationships now and again, and not knowing the reaction of the partner after disclosing the status makes PLHIV to retest, so that they pretend to be receiving the HIV+ results for the first time.
Some barriers are religious and traditional, PLHIV retest to confirm their HIV status after being prayed and confirming HIV status after taking traditional medicine. Peer driven testing is one of the one of the causes also, sometimes PLHIV test during community HIV testing campaigns due to peer pressure and fear of disclosing status to friends or colleagues or family members.
The “Be you (Yiba Nguwe)” campaigned has been designed specifically to address those barriers.
Messages targeting to address all the barriers were developed and will be distributed to different target audience on several platforms.
Target communities will be engaged through media campaigns, community dialogues and several other channels of message distribution. Worth mentioning is that, efforts are needed to prevent repeat testing amongst PLHIV, which can be achieved through strengthening retention strategies and providing an enabling and free environment for defaulters to disclose the prior HIV diagnosis.
One of the mandates of the ministry of health is to ensure that HIV programs reach out to the recipients of care within their various constituencies.
In her recognition, Dr. Malinga acknowledged the different media houses/platforms, as part of key stakeholders in disseminating key health messages to the public. She said “Dissemination of key health messages allow the public to make informed decisions, following comprehension of these messages.
Again, the media is always there to amplify such achievements, which benefits the health system and the country at large.
That is a recipe for reaching the HIV Epidemic Control and Ending AIDS by 2030”.
During the launch, the ministry of health appreciated the endless efforts by the HTS programme in collaboration with Jhpiego, not forgetting other stakeholders like ICAP, for the milestones that they have taken to reach this level. She also appreciated PEPFAR, Global Fund, WHO and other UN agencies for funding and technical support provided to the HIV program in Eswatini.
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