Paheja Siririka
Health minister Dr Kalumbi Shangula says the past two years have presented unprecedented challenges on global healthcare systems, with the prevailing Covid-19 pandemic severely impacting HIV/Aids response efforts.
Shangula said certain public health measures required to control the spread of Covid-19 have led to societal restrictions, including lockdowns and curfews that have negatively impacted the economy, education and health sector.
“In addressing the Covid-19 pandemic, we had to be innovative and nimble on our feet to ensure that the public health system was not overwhelmed by this new pandemic,” said Shangula, who was speaking at Outjo in the Kunene region during the 2021 World Aids Day commemoration.
Shangula added government continues to closely monitor the HIV prevalence ratio in Namibia, which stands at 8.3% of the general population, according to statistics from the Namibia Population-based HIV Impact Assessment (NAMPHIA) conducted three years ago.
“One of the challenges we have faced over the years relates to achieving our targets among children living with HIV. One of the factors is the limited range of paediatric ART formulations and poor adherence. In order to address these gaps, the ministry has started transitioning eligible children on ART to the new Paediatric Dolutegravir-based formulation, which is currently the most effective ARV medicine available in the world,” he said.
The ministry has introduced a programme called the Namibia Adolescent Treatment Support (NATS), an adolescent peer-led intervention to support treatment, care and adherence to medication amongst children living with HIV.
In the area of procurement of anti-retroviral medicines alone, the government spends in excess of N$200 million every year, with Shangula saying these investments have produced the required results as witnessed through the reduction in the number of deaths in Namibia due to HIV/AIDS complications.
“HIV infection has become just another manageable chronic condition. This is largely due to advances in science, which have produced effective therapies, greater adherence to treatment, and the reduction in stigma and discrimination.”
The executive director of the Namibia Network of AIDS Service Organisation (NANASO), Sandi Tjaronda, at the same occasion specified that many of the inequalities that facilitate the spread of the AIDS pandemic are getting worse – even so in the era of Covid-19, and they continue to further fuel the spread of HIV, including gender-based violence, stigma, service deprivation and discrimination.
“Covid-19 has unmasked these inequalities one by one, exposing how fragile we are when we stand on islands of fragmented interventions. Forty years of HIV response has given us key lessons we should adopt in the response to the Covid-19 pandemic,” he stated. Tjaronda said inequalities that disproportionately affect the key populations and other priority groups are real, hence the need to urgently remove structural and legal barriers that impede access.