International humanitarian medical aid organization ‘Doctors Without Borders’ appealed for international support for the Democratic Republic of the Congo, which is struggling with HIV/AIDS, on December 1st as ‘World AIDS Day’.
According to UNAIDS, an AIDS agency under the United Nations, there are more than 500,000 HIV-positive people in Congo, and one in five people do not receive adequate treatment. More than 14,000 people died of AIDS last year, and more than 20,000 new HIV infections occurred. Between 50,000 and 200,000 people died of HIV each year by the early 2000s.
According to MSF, the situation was even worse in May 2002, when a treatment center in Congo opened. At the time, antiretroviral therapy (ART), a treatment that inhibits viral replication, was in short supply, even though more than one million people were HIV-positive.
In response, MSF has opened the first treatment center in Kinshasha, the capital of Congo, to provide free medical care for HIV-positive patients.
“At the time, HIV was a death sentence for many people,” said Maria Mashako, MSF medical coordinator. In the early days of Edo, only symptomatic treatment was possible, not antiretroviral treatment.”
Since then, MSF has started to support local health centers and hospitals with free screening and treatment to increase access to care. Over the past 20 years, regarding 30 medical institutions in Kinshasa have been supported by MSF.
It has also worked with patient networks to set up distribution centers for antiretroviral drugs. Currently, there are 17 distribution centers in 8 regions, and more than 10,000 patients are receiving treatment through the distribution centers.
In addition, nurses were also able to prescribe antiretroviral drugs that only a few doctors might prescribe, and they created a treatment model that might track patients and educated medical workers. As a result, close to 19,000 people in Kinshasa alone received free antiretroviral treatment.
Doctors Without Borders said that although HIV and AIDS treatment in the Congo has made great progress over the past decade, there is still not enough national or international support for all patients to seek treatment.
Currently, only three provinces in Congo have equipment that can measure the amount of HIV in patients. In addition, a shortage of pediatric antiretroviral drugs means that a quarter of children born to HIV-positive people do not receive preventive measures, and two-thirds of HIV-infected children do not receive antiretroviral treatment.
“After establishing an inpatient unit dedicated to treatment of progressive HIV in 2008, we have doubled the number of beds over the past few years, but to accommodate all patients, we have to set up temporary wards with tents,” said Mashako, medical coordinator. This means that there are still challenges to be addressed,” he said.
“It will be difficult to eradicate HIV in the Congo unless the various stakeholders step up efforts,” he said. “One wish is that MSF will not be here in 20 years.”
