HIV fight still being hampered by stigma, discrimination – Dr Singh

Mar 25, 2014 News

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– As Guyana prepares to submit Progress Report to UNAIDS

Stigma and discrimination continue to be major challenges faced by the Ministry of Health’s National AIDS Programme Secretariat (NAPS) even as a fervent battle to reduce the impact of the HIV/AIDS epidemic continues.

This was amplified yesterday by NAPS Programme Director, Dr Shanti Singh, who insisted that the only way to address the existing challenges is to strengthen education programmes throughout the society, even at the level of the workplace, among key target populations and even among health care workers.
“We have had real cases being reported to us of discrimination in the work place, in the health sector and in a number of other areas. (Stigma and discrimination) have to be tackled from a number of fronts… If you look at the consequences of stigma and discrimination they are many,” asserted the NAPS Programme Manager.
She said that the whole concept of treatment and prevention is one that speaks to having persons who are HIV positive being able to access treatment to lower or suppress their viral-load to a point where HIV becomes almost non-transmissible.
The national fight against the disease is likely to be severely hampered since the continuance of stigma and discrimination is likely to see infected persons being unwilling to access treatment programmes. The extent of the situation is that persons who may suspect they are HIV positive may be unwilling to get tested while those who would have been tested positive would be hesitant to get treatment because of the perceived high level of stigma and discrimination, Dr Singh said.
She said that NAPS is currently looking at a treatment cascade concept that emerged over the past year whereby attention is given to persons knowing their HIV status in the community to the point where they have a suppressed viral-load with a view of reducing transmission.
Dr Singh’s deliberation came ahead of presenting a Draft National AIDS Progress Report before a gathering of stakeholders at the Regency Suites/Hotel.
The stakeholders were expected to give needful input to aid the completion of a final report which must be presented to UNAIDS by this month end.
The meeting yesterday was one in a series of many stakeholder meetings which saw the crafting of “many, many drafts before we got to this first Draft that we are disseminating here today,” said Dr Singh.

The Report is one that seeks to detail the progress made in the HIV fight over the period 2012 through 2013, even as it examines some of the difficulties and some of the challenges that were faced by NAPS.
It will also give a brief comparison between the 2010 and 2011 reports.
The modelling and estimation of the epidemic for 2012 suggested that there was a 1.2 per cent adult prevalence which, according to Dr Singh, translated to about 7,200 people living with the disease.
“We are currently modelling, so we don’t have an estimate for 2013 as yet but this should be confirmed by March 31,” she assured.
Speaking to the preparation of the Report, Dr Singh said that a meeting of a Monitoring and Reference Group, which is in fact the technical group leading the preparation of this report, was convened.
An initial meeting was held on January 28, last, and, according to Dr Singh, “basically what took place at that meeting was an outline of how we would approach the preparation of this report.
“We had a good overview and understanding of what the process should look like based on the UNAIDS guidance and based on that information and background we started with the preparation of the report.”
As with the preparation of previous reports, support was forthcoming from UNAIDS and the UN system which saw at least two consultants joining the preparation efforts.
One consultant, according to the NAPS Programme Manager, was tasked with scrutinising the overall big report that must be submitted while a second dealt with the National Commitments and Policy Instruments (NCPI).
The main objective of the NCPI survey was therefore intended to evaluate Guyana’s progress in relation to the National Strategic Plan and to garner stakeholders’ feedback on the extent to which progress has been made in achieving national commitments on HIV and AIDS.
This information was acquired by utilising 52 key informants, —25 from Government, 17 from civil society organisations and 10 UN organisations— and bilateral partners.
The informants were drawn from Regions Three, Four, Six and Ten. They were interviewed using questionnaire.
“The NCPI really looked at persons’ perception of the response…in a number of areas for example political commitment and support, policy issues, HIV care and treatment, prevention and a number of other issues,” explained Dr Singh.
She added that the NCPI report is built into the overall progress report of the country which will be submitted Monday to UNAIDS.
The opening of the stakeholders’ forum saw remarks being delivered on the state of the HIV/AIDS fight by Civil Society Representative, Desiree Edghill; UNAIDS Guyana Country Coordinator, Dr Roberto Brant Campos; and Chief Medical Officer, Dr Shamdeo Persaud.
The submission of Guyana’s report will be in keeping with the targets set in the 2011 Political Declaration on HIV/AIDS.
The 2011 Political Declaration on HIV/AIDS committed countries to, by 2015, halve sexual transmission of HIV and transmission among intravenous drug users, eliminate mother-to-child transmission, significantly reduce AIDS-related maternal deaths, halve tuberculosis deaths in people living with HIV, and put 15 million people living with the disease on antiretroviral drug therapy.
In addition, member states committed to accelerate research and development for a safe, affordable, effective, accessible vaccine and for a cure for HIV, as well as to deploy new biomedical interventions-such as microbicides, HIV treatment prophylaxis and early treatment as prevention as soon as they are validated. Moreover, countries are expected to report annually on progress towards those aims.

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