Tuesday, 5 September 2017
Monday, 4 September 2017
Saturday, 18 February 2017
Crisis as only 900,000 out of 3.2m HIV patients receive treatment
Out of the 3.2 million people reportedly suffering from the Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV) in Nigeria, only 900,000 have access to treatment, a professor of haematology and transfusion medicine at the College of Medicine, University of Lagos, Professor Suleiman Akanmu, has revealed.
Only 900,000 HIV patients in Nigeria have access to treatment - Expert
There are concerns that HIV positive patients cannot access medications in Nigeria
The situation is currently raising concerns especially with a growing incidence of resistance to anti-retroviral medications in the country.
Vanguard reports that while speaking in Lagos, Professor Akanmu said only 900,000 persons living with HIV in the country are currently on a treatment programme.
The report said Akanmu, who is also the Chairman, National Task Team on Antiretroviral therapy (ART) in Nigeria, spoke at a programme organised by the World Health Organisation (WHO) where he blamed the development on an inability to carry out routine viral load test, as well as unavailability of second and third line medications to treat HIV.
“Many of our patients that are on first line dr*gs are failing and they are supposed to be put on second line dr*gs which is not available now.
“Also we are not detecting failure on time, if you have about 900,000 Nigerians on first line dr*gs, we do not know how many of them have failed the first line regimen because we do not routinely carry out viral load test to show that while on dr*gs, the virus is still detectable in them.
“If we have facilities in Nigeria where people can easily do viral load test, then we would be able to detect first line failure and be talking about putting them on second line regimen,” he said while urging for more research and support for laboratories in the country to effectively carry out viral load test as well as availability of medications.
“Research is key, in other parts of the world, before you put a patient on ART, they normally do dr*g resistance testing to know what type of dr*g the individual is sensitive to before applying the dr*gs, but that is not feasible in our situation.
“If we are going to prevent viral resistance from evolving, then we must ensure that the virus does not replicate, because the resistance is coming from the ability of the virus to replicate, so we must administer dr*gs that do not allow the virus to replicate itself,” he added.
Dr Wondimagegnehu Alemu, the country representative of the WHO in Nigeria, said the organisation was commitment to producing guidelines that would help countries to improve surveillance of dr*g resistance as well as monitor and detect it in a public health setting.
“The challenge in Nigeria is that there have been load of works done in dr*g resistance but to large extent these have not been properly coordinated at national level.
“We have several initiative been done but there is no opportunity to disseminate it to everybody, so we are using this meeting to bring together expertise to disseminate what they have doing in term of dr*g resistance. Presently Nigeria is doing well as they always follow the WHO guideline on which dr*gs to use,” he said.
Only 900,000 HIV patients in Nigeria have access to treatment - Expert
There are concerns that HIV positive patients cannot access medications in Nigeria
The situation is currently raising concerns especially with a growing incidence of resistance to anti-retroviral medications in the country.
Vanguard reports that while speaking in Lagos, Professor Akanmu said only 900,000 persons living with HIV in the country are currently on a treatment programme.
The report said Akanmu, who is also the Chairman, National Task Team on Antiretroviral therapy (ART) in Nigeria, spoke at a programme organised by the World Health Organisation (WHO) where he blamed the development on an inability to carry out routine viral load test, as well as unavailability of second and third line medications to treat HIV.
“Many of our patients that are on first line dr*gs are failing and they are supposed to be put on second line dr*gs which is not available now.
“Also we are not detecting failure on time, if you have about 900,000 Nigerians on first line dr*gs, we do not know how many of them have failed the first line regimen because we do not routinely carry out viral load test to show that while on dr*gs, the virus is still detectable in them.
“If we have facilities in Nigeria where people can easily do viral load test, then we would be able to detect first line failure and be talking about putting them on second line regimen,” he said while urging for more research and support for laboratories in the country to effectively carry out viral load test as well as availability of medications.
“Research is key, in other parts of the world, before you put a patient on ART, they normally do dr*g resistance testing to know what type of dr*g the individual is sensitive to before applying the dr*gs, but that is not feasible in our situation.
“If we are going to prevent viral resistance from evolving, then we must ensure that the virus does not replicate, because the resistance is coming from the ability of the virus to replicate, so we must administer dr*gs that do not allow the virus to replicate itself,” he added.
Dr Wondimagegnehu Alemu, the country representative of the WHO in Nigeria, said the organisation was commitment to producing guidelines that would help countries to improve surveillance of dr*g resistance as well as monitor and detect it in a public health setting.
“The challenge in Nigeria is that there have been load of works done in dr*g resistance but to large extent these have not been properly coordinated at national level.
“We have several initiative been done but there is no opportunity to disseminate it to everybody, so we are using this meeting to bring together expertise to disseminate what they have doing in term of dr*g resistance. Presently Nigeria is doing well as they always follow the WHO guideline on which dr*gs to use,” he said.