PAHO Still To Collect ART Data from Antigua

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Health News

Thursday, 28 June 2012 02:30

By caribarena news

Antigua St John's - Antigua & Barbuda and other OECS nations are playing catch-up with other larger Caribbean and Latin American nations in collecting and submitting to the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO) data regarding progress in expanding the availability of antiretroviral treatment (ART) for people with HIV.

PAHO has this week released data in this regard for some 32 countries in the region. The report highlights the progress of some countries like Guyana, Chile and Nicaragua that have made notable strides in reaching those who need the treatment.

Head of the National AIDS Secretariat Delcora Williams explained that when PAHO conducted its assessment it failed to include the OECS and therefore no data was collected in time to include the small islands in the initial release.

With that, she said PAHO has only recently sent the necessary data collection material to Antigua & Barbuda, despite reports that country-level data is currently available. These materials are in the hands of the Health Information Unit for completion.

“We are waiting on Health Information to send the data to us so that we could forward it to PAHO,” Williams said. She added that if this is done by the end of the week, it could be forwarded to PAHO by next week.

Williams did not provide an estimated timeline on when PAHO would complete its analysis of the data and produce a report.

“Now they are trying to collect that data. Hopefully, if we get that in sometime this week we will be able to send to PAHO by next week,” Williams said.

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In the meantime PAHO has reported that a number of countries in Latin America and the Caribbean—including Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Cuba, the Dominican Republic, Guyana, Mexico, Nicaragua and Uruguay have made major progress in expanding the availability of antiretroviral treatment (ART) for people with HIV. The advancement is considered to have saved the lives of thousands, and prevented many new infections.

The report also finds that several countries continue to face major “treatment gaps” that leave many people who need HIV medication without access to it. And it recommends that overcoming these gaps will require improvements in early diagnosis, referrals, and monitoring of HIV patients, as well as greater efficiency in the procurement and use of ART.

It was also reported that region-wide, 63 percent of adults in ART are on first-line regimens recommended by the World Health Organisation, and 33 percent are on WHO-recommended second-line treatments. Anguilla, Grenada, Guyana and Honduras have the highest rates of compliance with these WHO recommendations.

The country-level analyses follow the release in May of the PAHO/WHO report “Antiretroviral Treatment in the Spotlight: A Public Health Analysis in Latin America and the Caribbean.” It recommends that health system weaknesses be addressed, balancing an individual approach with a public health perspective, to ensure that the Region of the Americas remains a global leader in ART.

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