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Showing posts with label AIDS. Show all posts
Showing posts with label AIDS. Show all posts

Apr 2, 2011

Bhutan showing some important progress

Although the health ministry projects that about 893 people will live with HIV/AIDS by 2013, Bhutan is showing some important progress and true commitment to reaching universal access to HIV services, according to the UN resident coordinator Claire Van der Vaeren.

The resident coordinator was reflecting on Bhutan’s response to AIDS during the launch of the United Nations secretary-general’s report on HIV/AIDS in Bangkok yesterday, where Bhutan joined nearly 30 countries from Asia to review progress and challenges, and develop key actions for the way forward in the region’s efforts to ensure universal access to HIV services for all.

“Moving forward, one of our key challenges is continued funding support of the HIV and AIDS program in Bhutan,” said the resident coordinator. “We need to explore new and innovative avenues to ensure a sustainable AIDS response to improve the lives of Bhutanese men, women and children living with HIV and those vulnerable to infection.”

A press release from the UNDP office in Bhutan stated that, in Bhutan, there has been significant progress in scaling up HIV prevention and treatment, in providing free healthcare services and, importantly, in bringing Bhutanese living with HIV into the national response.

However, universal access across HIV prevention, treatment, care and support is still not a reality in the Asia-Pacific region, including Bhutan, it stated. Across the region, one in three people does not have access to treatment; 60 percent of people living with HIV in the region do not know their HIV status; and key affected communities continue to be subjected to stigma and discrimination, punitive laws, policies and practices, which obstruct access to services.

Many countries in the region – including those with or approaching middle-income status — rely heavily on international funding for their AIDS responses.

At the regional consultation, UNAIDS Asia-Pacific regional director, Steve Kraus, said that governments must create a new form of mutual accountability –government to government – to build a unified regional AIDS response beyond national borders.

“Governments in this region have the economic means to take on greater responsibility for financing AIDS, the results of which will directly impact their continued development,” he said.

ESCAP social development division director, Nanda Krairiksh, added: “The world’s most populous region can’t afford complacency on AIDS. Political leadership with civil society and the key affected communities as the cornerstone of the response requires fresh perspectives from the ground.”

Health officials, during the mid-term review meeting of the ministry last December, said that, of the many millennium development goals that Bhutan has been lauded for keeping steady towards meeting, reversing and stopping the spread of HIV/AIDS by 2015 looked grim.

This, they said, was because, at the start of 10th Plan, the number of people detected with HIV was 140. The country’s projection is 893 HIV patients by 2013. Since the first case in 1993, the ministry has so far detected 217 cases. World Health Organisation estimates revealed Bhutan had 500 cases in 2008 alone.

Source: Kuenselonline

Dec 2, 2009

Bhutan Observed World AIDS Day

As the nation observed World AIDS Day yesterday in Zhemgang, health officials said that harmful practices in the village like ear and nose piercing with the same sharpened bamboo sticks, using the same scissors to cut hair, and the same razor blade to cut skin and suck out blood to cure headaches need to be done away with.

“Despite a multi-sectoral task force functioning in the dzongkhag, all sections of people, including students and civil servants, don’t have clear knowledge on HIV/AIDS,” said the public health director Dr Ugyen Dophu, after the question-answer session, where students and the public of Zhemgang asked various basic questions on HIV/AIDS. “Ignorance is a big challenge in Zhemgang dzongkhag.”

Her Majesty the Queen Mother, Ashi Sangay Choden Wangchuck, told the gathering of about 900 people that December 1 is the day observed to show compassion to all HIV positive patients and commit to prevent the disease. “It’s not important to know who is infected with HIV/AIDs, but what’s important is to know how to protect from infection,” she said, adding that those infected should not spread it to others.

Of the 33 million people infected with HIV/AIDS around the world, 185 are in Bhutan.

According to Dr Ugyen Dophu, anti retroviral drugs (ARD), given to HIV/AIDS patients, are only available in the three referral hospitals of Gelephu, Mongar and Thimphu. “When HIV positive people come for the CD4 count (a CD4 count below 200 indicates serious immune damage), their blood is sent to any of the referral hospitals,” he said. “The patient has to go to the referral hospital in the initial phase, but the hospital decides whether he needs ARD or not.”

Referral hospitals send patients, along with medicines, to the hospital that is nearer to the patient’s place of residence. “The health staff in the locality will have to advise the patients monthly as the drug is very toxic,” Dr Ugyen Dophu explained. “With limited budget, the government can’t spread anti retroviral drugs to every district hospital, but training the health staff would be best for good access.”

The UN resident coordinator, Ms Claire Van der Vaeren said that the UN is committed to support the government in halting the HIV epidemic, by working together and making changes together. “It means change from exclusion to inclusion, from indifference to responsibility and from fear to hope.”

Chimi Lhadon, 40, from Tali village, told Kuensel that, in her village, the moment people talk about an HIV/AIDS patient, they directly link it to people of loose morals. “Today I knew that AIDS can also be incidentally transmitted through blood route,” the mother of four said, adding that she will go and advise her children to be careful.

Zhemgang dzongkhag has about eight HIV/AIDS patients.

Source: Kuenselonline