HIV, with Dr. Watiti
Jul 24, 2011
A lot of knowledge on HIV and AIDS has been accumulating since it was first discovered in the early 1980s. The HIV discordance phenomenon, as we understand it now, was not known in the early days of the disease. We thought all people whose spouses or sexual partners had HIV had it too.
Dear Doctor,
First it was PEP and now it is PreP for people in discordant relationships that is making news in the HIV world. Don’t you think these innovations are going to weaken our resolve to fight HIV using the good old ABC strategy that brought down the HIV prevalence in Uganda from a high 18% to the present 6-7%, where we have stagnated for a long time?
Juliet
Dear Juliet,
A lot of knowledge on HIV and AIDS has been accumulating since it was first discovered in the early 1980s. The HIV discordance phenomenon, as we understand it now, was not known in the early days of the disease. We thought all people whose spouses or sexual partners had HIV had it too.
Though nobody should discard the time tested and proven ABC in HIV prevention; we must welcome and embrace new technologies to beef up our defences in order to prevent new infections, and eventually eliminate this disease.
Now we know that what will bring down this disease will be a combination of behavioural interventions like abstinence and being faithful in stable relationships as well as biomedical methods such as condom use, circumcision plus use of ARVs.
This is not the first time drugs used to treat a disease have been used to prevent it; because for a long time antimalarials have been given to expatriates and pregnant women to prevent malaria.
What we need now is a policy for PreP just like we have the circumcision policy so that proper protocols to guide practice can be developed. But we need to go beyond developing policies and protocols.
We must operationalise them. Many people have come to this country, copied our policies and replaced Uganda with another name then quickly operationalised them and they are now doing better than we are!
First it was PEP and now it is PreP for people in discordant relationships that is making news in the HIV world. Don’t you think these innovations are going to weaken our resolve to fight HIV using the good old ABC strategy that brought down the HIV prevalence in Uganda from a high 18% to the present 6-7%, where we have stagnated for a long time?
Juliet
Dear Juliet,
A lot of knowledge on HIV and AIDS has been accumulating since it was first discovered in the early 1980s. The HIV discordance phenomenon, as we understand it now, was not known in the early days of the disease. We thought all people whose spouses or sexual partners had HIV had it too.
Though nobody should discard the time tested and proven ABC in HIV prevention; we must welcome and embrace new technologies to beef up our defences in order to prevent new infections, and eventually eliminate this disease.
Now we know that what will bring down this disease will be a combination of behavioural interventions like abstinence and being faithful in stable relationships as well as biomedical methods such as condom use, circumcision plus use of ARVs.
This is not the first time drugs used to treat a disease have been used to prevent it; because for a long time antimalarials have been given to expatriates and pregnant women to prevent malaria.
What we need now is a policy for PreP just like we have the circumcision policy so that proper protocols to guide practice can be developed. But we need to go beyond developing policies and protocols.
We must operationalise them. Many people have come to this country, copied our policies and replaced Uganda with another name then quickly operationalised them and they are now doing better than we are!