Pretoria - The City of Tshwane’s Health Department has urged people living with HIV not to default on their antiretroviral treatment.
According to the metro, Antiretroviral treatment (ARV and ART) plays an important role in the treatment and prevention of HIV infection by either stopping or interfering with the reproduction of the virus.
ARV medication helps to ensure that HIV-positive individuals maintain good health and quality of life over a longer period.
The City of Tshwane is among the top five districts with a high burden of HIV and the third highest in Gauteng. Despite this trend, people living with HIV interrupt their ARV treatment.
People interrupt their treatment when they miss clinic appointments or when they do not take treatment for a day or more. This is for a variety of reasons.
Despite the treatment being free at public facilities, increased transport costs and the high cost of living prevent people from visiting clinics to collect medication. The containment measures during the Covid-19 pandemic also played a role in interrupting treatment.
People also stop taking ARVs believing that they have been cured. The effect of interrupting medication is that it allows the virus to multiply (viral rebound), weakening one’s immune system. This could make a person vulnerable to other illnesses.
To assist in the department’s efforts to ensure that patients do not interrupt their ARV medication, the Tshwane District Health Services has a memorandum of agreement with the Wits Reproductive Health and HIV Institute. A Wits team is allocated to Tshwane, supporting and strengthening the HIV and TB programmes.
These include, among other activities, tracking and tracing, and linkage to care of patients who are not consistently taking prescribed HIV medication and/or not adhering to follow-up clinic visits.
The National Strategic Plan (NSP) for HIV, TB and STIs (2023–2028) reaffirmed that South Africa has one of the largest ARV programmes globally. It is for this reason that Tshwane encourages people living with HIV to make use of these programmes and to ensure continuity in their treatment.
Pretoria News