Adherence counsellor at the National Hospital Abuja, Mr Uyoo Emmanuel, has said the fear of stigmatisation prevented many HIV patients from accessing drugs in nearby facilities during the COVID-19 lockdown.
In a chat with Blueprint, Wednesday, Emmanuel said the viral load of many HIV patients increased as they failed to adhere to treatments, but that officials found a way to overcome the challenge.
He said: “We are aware of the stigma of infected people, which is a basic issue that comes with counseling. Most of them feel that they don’t have anybody when they discover they are HIV positive. So, the counsellor becomes a friend, who encourages and educates the patient.
“However, the patient sometimes doesn’t even trust the counsellor, which is another challenge. They fear that if they open up, the counsellor may not keep their information confidential, with regards to the issue of high stigmatisation, even now.
“When the issue of COVID-19 came up, we started recording low turn-up of people coming to hospitals for their medications and treatments and that was a huge problem. The lockdown and restriction in movement made people to default in their medications as some exhausted their medications. We do track our patients to ensure that they adhere to medications. However, the lockdown also affected our movement and they also didn’t come to us. So, the lockdown affected HIV treatment.
“Also, the patients also feared contracting Covid-19 to add to the HIV they were already treating, so they stayed away from hospitals. So, it was a big challenge as we discovered that many of our patients started failing their drugs. We have first line drugs and second line drugs. We discovered that the viral load of those on first line drugs had started coming up, because many of them stopped taking their drugs during the Covid-19 lockdown, because of the policy of restriction in movement and fear of getting infected at the hospitals.
“Like I said before, we track patients by calling them on phone to come for their treatments and medications or for them to move to closer centres if in another state. Also, if possible, we try to reach them with the drugs. However, those who didn’t access drugs had problems with their viral loads. Many said they were not aware that they could access drugs in closer facilities. So, those who stopped taking their drugs recorded high viral loads, while those who went to closer facilities accessed their drugs.”
