Gaps, challenges in reversing HIV epidemic

Minister of Health Terrence Deyalsingh, centre and participants at the opening ceremony of National AIDS Programme, Hilton Hotel, St Ann’s, yesterday.
PHOTO BY ANGELO M MARCELLE
Minister of Health Terrence Deyalsingh, centre and participants at the opening ceremony of National AIDS Programme, Hilton Hotel, St Ann’s, yesterday. PHOTO BY ANGELO M MARCELLE

While the region has been making progress over the last three to five years towards reversing the HIV epidemic and achieving a reduction in the number of new HIV infections by 18 per cent and deaths by 23 per cent, there are many gaps and challenges, resulting in uneven progress. This was revealed yesterday by Sandra Jones, technical adviser on HIV/ STI, TB and Viral Hepatitis PAHO/WHO and sub-regional programme co-ordinator for the Caribbean.

Speaking at the seventh meeting of National AIDS programme managers and key partners at the Hilton Trinidad, St Ann’s, Jones said while there has been progress in treating more people living with HIV, much more needs to be done to increase the numbers, and to keep people on treatment. But, she said, “The ambitious Sustainable Development Goals with specific indicators for HIV, the Sustainable Health Agenda for the Americas, the HIV fast-track targets, evidence-based interventions and regional frameworks such as the CRSF (Caribbean Regional Strategic Framework) and the Caribbean Co-operation in Health, coupled with a strong primary care system in each of the member states and committed partners, will provide the region with a unique opportunity to address the challenges.”

Jones said it will also accelerate actions and close the gaps, making the
2030 target of ending AIDS and other other STIs as public health threats in the Caribbean, achievable. Health Minister Terrence Deyalsingh said there are approximately 11,000 people living with HIV in TT. He said there is a need to find roughly 1,000 people who are estimated to have the virus but do not know their status. “This will help us reach our first 90 goal. We are currently, I think, at 78 per cent, so that gap of 1,000 people will be found during a period of scaling-up testing – going into communities, and really focusing on the key populations to test them and to find that gap about 1,100 people who we estimate are living with the disease but don’t know their status. These include sex workers, men who have sex with men, transgender.

“However, one of the segment of the populations that we have to go after are men in general.”

Deyalsingh said men don’t like to be tested, whether for prostate cancer or HIV: they don’t like to get it done. So the ministry is working on setting up clinics for men.

“What we are thinking about doing is setting up special men’s clinics – the same way in the public sector you have women’s clinics, we are thinking about setting up special men’s clinics to communicate with them and get them to realise that they have a duty to themselves and their partners and the wider communities to get tested.”He said there had been changes in recent years owing to medical advances.”

“Men over 50 and 60 years are a population we need to pay attention to, because gone are the days when they were not sexually active. Men over 50 to 70, because of pharmaceuticals, are now sexually active as they were in their twenties. So we have to go after men in general.”

Derick Springer, director for PANCAP (Pan Caribbean Partnership Against HIV and AIDS) said the HIV incidence and AIDS-related deaths have been reduced, and seven countries have been certified as having achieved the dual targets for the elimination of mother-to-child transmission of HIV and syphilis.

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"Gaps, challenges in reversing HIV epidemic"

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