Marseille 2007
| Abstract #340 - Addressing more on Treatment Literacy Issues | ||||
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Session: 26.94: Posters B (Poster) on Tuesday in Chaired by Authors: Presenting Author: Ms Mpendwa Abinery - National Network of Tanzanian women with HIV/AIDS, Tanzania, United Republic Of |
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| Additional Authors: | ||||
| Aim: The aim of this presentation is to use the Tanzanian context of experience to show how lack of treatment knowledge affect the policies and programs that aim at accelerating the Treatment facilities in the community. | ||||
| Method / Issue: It is now the 24th year since the first person was diagnosed HIV+ in the lake zone in Tanzania. Since then, many people have lost their lives until when the ARV drugs were introduced in the country. In the national care and treatment plan 2004 2008, all people with HIV/AIDS should get ARV free of charge. | ||||
| Results / Comments: Since when the program of provision of free ARV drugs was launched in Tanzania in October 2004, still quite a few People with AIDS have access to these drugs due to limited resources. This is a problem, but there is a more serious problem of treatment literacy. Many people with HIV/AIDS do not have correct and reliable information on the ARV drugs. When we participate in the WHO trainings of Expert Patient Trainers, many health workers complained that whenever one is diagnosed positive, they immediately ask for medication since they do not know when one is supposed to start treatment. Moreover, it has been reported that those who are on treatment have most of times fail to comply and adhere to treatment due to lack of proper information of the drugs and effects of poor adherence. | ||||
| Discussion: Though the government made a good idea of provision of ARV to eligible PLHAs, the issue of the treatment literacy was to be prioritized first. It now seems that the effectiveness of this program is small due to many peoples illiteracy in treatment issues. The fear that newly positive diagnosed people get when they are denied of medication can lead to frustration and giving up, without knowing that not every PLHA is eligible to treatment. My recommendation is, every nation, government and non government organizations should try to mobilize resources in order to facilitate the treatment literacy throughout their communities to both HIV+ and non positive, since all non positives are potential positives. This will support any programs or policies that will be laid by any government concerning the provision of the ARV drugs to the eligible people living with HIV/AIDS. | ||||
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