Deyalsingh is unfit to serve

“It is regrettable that TT have (sic) now tarnished its reputation in the international health environment by a very unfortunate statement,” Dr Keith Rowley’s health minister and MP for the marginal St Joseph constituency told senators on Wednesday, responding to Independent and Opposition bench questions, while touting Government’s drive, consistent with international public health practice, to vaccinate vulnerable groups to protect them against the flu.

Opposition MP Tim Gopeesingh, a gynaecologist, had raised scepticism about vaccinating pregnant women and infants, in an ongoing sparring between the two, where Deyalsingh has repeatedly politicised public health.

Gopeesingh’s remarks, Deyalsingh argued, triggered international calls from public health authorities and others, questioning why TT had “fallen prey” to vaccine-denial.

“Show me the evidence” for scepticism, Deyalsingh repeated, accusing the UNC of public health “recklessness.” “Because there is none.”

Statements like Gopeesingh’s “pushed back TT years,” he whined, wrapping himself in the “WHO protocol.”

“In TT we follow WHO guidelines,” he insisted, emphasising the vaccination policy’s focus on vulnerable groups.

Deyalsingh’s words are better applied to himself.

Two weeks ago César Núñez, UNAids regional director, made strategic public remarks at a regional parliamentary gathering here on sustainable development goals: “My message to ministries of health: there is enough evidence already that PrEP (pre-exposure prophylaxis for HIV prevention) works. I would encourage doing PrEP right away. I think it makes sense no matter where you are. It does work and it will help any country fast-track the response…and get rid of HIV amongst its population…”

The UN official’s remarks followed Sunday Newsday’s World Aids Day story highlighting Deyalsingh’s humiliating 2016 remarks, at a signing ceremony pledging to eliminate HIV – that he would withhold PrEP from vulnerable groups because, the paper reported, he “was not going to spend money on HIV drugs on people who engage in risky behaviour…it was Government’s position to provide HIV drugs for those who knew their status.”

Translation: after they done get HIV.

“PrEP” involves providing people who don’t have HIV (“pre-exposure”) medications developed to treat HIV in order to prevent HIV from taking hold if they are exposed to it (“prophylaxis”). Making PrEP available to groups of people at highest risk of getting HIV is part of regional and international plans to end the HIV epidemic. Daily PrEP reduces the risk of getting HIV sexually by over 95 per cent.

Anyone can get HIV; but not everyone is at equal risk. Some groups of people, because of life circumstances, or behaviours they engage in, have sex under conditions where odds of getting HIV if they are exposed are enormously higher than for others. For many of them, it’s hard or impossible to change those conditions. These are the groups where most of the HIV epidemic is concentrated, and spreads.

Arming them with PrEP lowers HIV risk for all of us.

But “You cannot go to a pharmacy and buy the drugs in TT. You have to get them through the government – and the government will not give it to you,” I was quoted as saying in the December 2 story, accusing the health minister of “moral hypocrisy.” I hadn’t anticipated its extent in the Senate.

The very day after UNAIDS’s remarks, Deyalsingh dug his heels further into the lives of vulnerable groups, declaring defiantly to this paper yet again that giving those “at a higher risk of getting HIV…a drug to prevent yourself from getting HIV…is not government policy.”

“We won’t encourage risk behaviour,” the headline paraphrased.

Social media lit up with shame at the public health irresponsibility of his statement.

The next day, a PanCaribbean Partnership Against HIV/Aids release “fully endorsed the World Health Organisation’s…​recommendation that PrEP be offered to all population groups at substantial risk of becoming infected with HIV,” reminding this was part of “Strategic Priority Area 4 of the Caribbean Regional Strategic Framework on HIV and AIDS…2019-2025…endorsed by (Caricom) Ministers of Health at the…Council of Human and Social Development–Health” September meeting.

A Sea Lots woman living with HIV declared PrEP could have averted her infection. The Family Planning Association called Deyalsingh “short-sighted.”

Respondents to Newsday’s “street” poll surprised many, unanimously supporting PrEP.

I often quote then Guyanese health minister Leslie Ramsammy’s PANCAP address, chronicling the political expediencies impeding an effective HIV response.

“But…I am the minister of health and I must be driven by public health reality,” he concluded.

Ours, unfortunately, has “fallen prey” to homophobia. And Deyalsingh must “Show us the evidence” for his intransigence on PrEP, or resign.

The minister also misled the nation by declaring to Newsday that PrEP medication “is available in the private sector. It’s as simple as that.”

No one I know knows where. I called SuperPharm. “No, sweetie pie.” Allum’s and Midtown pharmacies (in Petit Valley and Tunapuna) neither.

Darryl Smith was removed from Cabinet for one sexual harassment allegation. Deyalsingh’s playing God with thousands of lives. His “policy” needs to be a campaign issue in 2020.