‘Bay residents remiss over HIV treatment’
Residents in Nelson Mandela Bay are the worst when it comes to taking their HIV medication and there is a lot of work ahead to change that.
That is according to health MEC Helen Sauls-August, who spoke at the launch of an HIV and Aids treatment and testing campaign in the Bay in the build-up to World Aids Day.
Sauls-August said: “We need to arrest certain situations, we need to have case findings correct, we need to get those lost [who did not return for treatment] to follow up.
“Those patients need to come back and conclude their [treatment] and we need to ensure that those on ARTs are virally suppressed.”
The metro was identified to host the launch campaign based on its poor performance of health indicators such as health screening and testing.
The Eastern Cape has 43,831 “lost patients” on treatment, with the metro accounting for 8,912 – the highest in the province.
“Patients get onto treatment but we can’t suppress their virus because they do not continuously take their medication,” she said.
She added that 10.5% of patients in the metro were defaulting on medication, opposed to the national average of 6.5%.
“Our main aim is for an HIV/Aids-free generation by 2030,” she said. “In doing that we want to ensure our foot-soldiers are going out doing doorto-door [health screening].”
Three stations were set up as part of the launch – at the Uitenhage taxi terminus, in Rosedale and Khayamnandi, where anyone can get tested for HIV/Aids, STIs, TB, blood pressure, blood glucose and even get their teeth extracted.
No set reasons for why people were defaulting could be found, health department spokesperson Lwandile Sicwetsha said.