Cape Town - HIV testing declined by over 20% as the need to address the burden of Covid-19 resulted in negative effects for non-Covid-19 patients and health services, health authorities have confirmed.
Addressing the Policy Dialogue on Universal Health Coverage in South Africa on Universal Health Coverage Day on Monday, Health Minister Dr Joe Phaahla said of the entire service package, routine services for non-communicable diseases (NCDs) were greatly affected.
“Follow-up visits for patients with NCDs were postponed and health-care workers (HCWs) were redeployed to Covid-19 services. Delays in diagnosis, monitoring and treatment of NCDs, particularly at primary health care (PHC) level have potentially severe implications for people living with NCDs,” Phaahla said.
Pregnant women attended clinics later in their pregnancies during 2021 than in the previous year.
HIV and TB services, which are the most robust vertical programmes due to the intensive investment and resource allocation to address the burden of disease, also suffered.
“On average, HIV testing declined by 22.3% in 2020 compared to 2019, with the largest decline seen from April to July 2020. Even when lockdown eased, numbers did not reach the levels of the previous years.
However, HIV services for those already living with HIV were maintained. TB notifications in South Africa declined by more than 50% and the weekly average of confirmed TB cases decreased by 33%.
This decline in testing has significant implications for treatment initiation, linkage to care and reducing transmission of TB and HIV,” added Phaahla.
Despite these challenges, he said service innovations like drive-through and mobile testing units and vaccination sites, born from the pandemic, provided possible avenues for future services such as remote TB testing.
The Central Chronic Medicines Dispensing and Distribution model also saw massive scale-up to ensure patients had access to medication.
A new report by the Rural Health Advocacy Project titled “Health System Strengthening Post-Covid-19” echoed the minister’s revelations that the health system disruptions caused by the Covid-19 pandemic “compromised the gains made in many programmes in this sector”.
“In addition to the challenges in accessing care, laboratory requests linked to NCDs such as dyslipidaemia, diabetes, and thyroid pathology showed notable declines during Covid-19 lockdown. The likely implications are that there would be a delayed detection of abnormal results, thus increasing the risk of complications related to these NCDs,” the report stated.
Cape Times