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By Fatima Bulla
THE National Aids Council recently held a two-day meeting in Kwekwe with provincial medical directors to review progress made and to map the way forward on how to sustain national outreach programmes under Global Fund Round Five support.
NAC chief executive Dr Tapiwa Magure said new World Health Organsation guidelines that require governments to initiate people living with HIV onto treatment sooner than previously recommended had come with new challenges.
“Generally, things are picking up after we took over the support of the outreach programmes that had appeared to go off the rails since Global Fund Round Five backing ceased last year in July.
“The new WHO guidelines come with new demands that need to be tackled despite the absence of the fund.
“WHO now requires HIV positive people with a CD4 count of 350 to be initiated.
“Previously, the recommendation was that they could wait until it dropped to 200.”
He said this meant they needed to have more CD4 count machines spread out across the 62 districts.
“But I am happy to say that we have machines that were delivered at provincial offices (last week) on Thursday,” Dr Magure said.
He said they were looking forward to commencement of the new line of drugs, tenofovir, and the programme will run for the next three years starting in April.
“We already have demand for the drug and have placed an order worth US$6 million.
“Our first port of call will be those people with various reactions.
“We also need those who have been on treatment for about three years to be among the first ones to benefit so that we avoid a situation were they become resistant to treatment,” he said.
He added that the problem of staffing remained since NAC took over sustenance of outreach programmes when Round Five support stopped last year.
Under Round Five, the Global Fund provided transport, allowances and food to medical staff that consisted of two doctors, laboratory scientists and pharmacists.
“Available cash is not yet enough to cover remote areas like Guruve,” Dr Magure said.