AIDS/HIV - The African Mirror

Jul

2021

HIV generic drug for babies distributed in Africa, says UNITAID

AID agencies have distributed a strawberry-flavoured tablet for children living with HIV in six African countries, the first generic pediatric version of a key anti-retroviral, according to the global health agency UNITAID. UNITAID and Clinton Health Access Initiative (CHAI) funding procured 100,000 packs of the dolutegravir formulation across Nigeria, Malawi, Uganda, Kenya, Zimbabwe and Benin, UNITAD's spokesman Herve Verhoosel said in a statement to Reuters. Some 1.8 million children worldwide live with HIV, but only half receive any treatment, often hard to administer due to the bitter taste or incorrectly dosed by crushing adult pills. Some 100,000 children die of…

Nov

2020

By The African Mirror

Millions of people are on treatment for HIV: why are so many still dying?

HEALTH

TWENTY years ago treatment for HIV was a rare luxury in South Africa. Exorbitant costs and President Thabo Mbeki’s government’s fierce opposition to providing antiretroviral treatment (ART) kept it out of the public sector. GILLES VAN CUTSEM, Honorary Research Associate, Centre for Infectious Disease Epidemiology and Research, University of Cape Town They were terrible days. Many lives were lost. The environment has changed remarkably since then. The turning point came in 2004 when, after four years of struggle, led by the Treatment Action Campaign, the government begrudgingly agreed to start providing ART. Antiretroviral coverage of people with HIV in South…

Oct

2020

By The African Mirror

‘Corona carriers’: Stigma halts medication and meet-ups for HIV+ Malawians

COVID-19

CHARLES PENSULO MALAWIAN student Kondwani has fought against the stigma of being HIV-positive for most of his life, but COVID-19 has reignited old prejudices and given rise to a new term of abuse - "corona carrier". A widely held misconception that HIV-positive people are at high risk of catching the coronavirus is fueling discrimination and making it harder for them to access the medical care they need, health activists in the southern African country said. Kondwani, 24, said it was also spreading anxiety among the 1.1 million people who live with HIV in Malawi - which has one of the…