Lutaaya Dan
Voiceless Orphan Taskforce, Uganda
Posters & Accepted Abstracts: J HIV Retrovirus
Anti-Retroviral Therapy (ART) is a part of HIV treatment. ART treatment seems to give a great promise to improved quality of life among people living with HIV and increased life expectancy over the past 30 years. Recent studies have shown that proper use of ART rapidly suppresses the virus to undetectable amounts. This however doesn't mean that the patient is cured from the virus. This effectiveness of ART has however of late turned into a little danger to the efforts in the fight against HIV/AIDS. A number of clients responding well to ART completely have no signs of HIV; in fact, in most cases they look healthier than the HIV negative people and can easily convince anyone into unprotected sex. In addition, the suppression of the virus to undetectable amounts makes many discordant couples engage confidently in unsafe sex which may surely be risky in the end. The above is worsened by the fact that of late, pre-test counseling and post-test follow-ups have not been given much attention due to the huge workload usually found at healthy centers, only 1600 physicians for a population of 20 million people. If such situations are not checked early in time, the globe might see another face of HIV transmission risk. Attention now has to be put on the after implications of effective ART treatment to both the infected and non-infected community members. The fight shouldn't be left in the hands of the public to make their own conclusions and decisions. Professional mass communication messages and policies should target this situation.
E-mail: voicelessorphan@gmail.com
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