TANZANIA: Free food programme to complement free ARVs
DAR ES SALAAM, 8 August (PLUSNEWS) - The treatment and care of HIV-positive Tanzanians, more than half of whom live below the poverty line, must go well beyond merely providing life-prolonging medication if it is to be successful.
"Most patients are poor. The medicines become irritants when they react with the walls of the stomach, exacerbating the side effects of the drugs. Without money to buy food, they are forced to literally feed on the drugs," said Monica Joseph, an HIV/AIDS counsellor and nurse at the Shree Hindu Mandal Hospital in the coastal city of Dar es Salaam.
Most HIV/AIDS patients lived in rural areas and urban slums, and being able to afford enough food was a problem. "It is an emerging challenge that health-givers must contend with. Some patients withdraw from the programme after developing side effects, most of which are related to nutritional factors."
According to Herman Lupogo, director-general of the Tanzania Commission for AIDS (TACAIDS), "ARVs must be integrated into other national health and food security programmes. ARVs alone cannot boost the patient's immunity; provision of nutritious food must go hand in hand with the distribution of free ARVs, or else AIDS will remain a major health problem."
The government has acknowledged these concerns by announcing a programme to provide free food for HIV/AIDS patients. Although details of the scheme are yet to be made public, it has received strong political backing.
However, Joseph said the policy would be difficult to implement because nearly 55 percent of the population lived on less than a dollar a day, and she foresaw logistical and financial problems in setting up the feeding programmes countrywide. Approximately 44,000 HIV-positive people are receiving free ARVs.
Tanzania experienced a severe drought recently, and the United Nations World Food Programme estimates that some 565,000 people are facing food shortages. Mobilising enough resources to feed the growing number of AIDS patients would be extremely difficult.
Critics have warned that persistently poor harvests would force the government to import food to sustain the programme, adding to the cost.
Joseph also thought it likely that some patients would sell the food to get money for fuel and water. Some organisations had already backed out of feeding programmes because many patients, particularly women, were so poor that they would rather give the food to their children, while their own health continued to deteriorate.
Source: Pronut-HIV
"Most patients are poor. The medicines become irritants when they react with the walls of the stomach, exacerbating the side effects of the drugs. Without money to buy food, they are forced to literally feed on the drugs," said Monica Joseph, an HIV/AIDS counsellor and nurse at the Shree Hindu Mandal Hospital in the coastal city of Dar es Salaam.
Most HIV/AIDS patients lived in rural areas and urban slums, and being able to afford enough food was a problem. "It is an emerging challenge that health-givers must contend with. Some patients withdraw from the programme after developing side effects, most of which are related to nutritional factors."
According to Herman Lupogo, director-general of the Tanzania Commission for AIDS (TACAIDS), "ARVs must be integrated into other national health and food security programmes. ARVs alone cannot boost the patient's immunity; provision of nutritious food must go hand in hand with the distribution of free ARVs, or else AIDS will remain a major health problem."
The government has acknowledged these concerns by announcing a programme to provide free food for HIV/AIDS patients. Although details of the scheme are yet to be made public, it has received strong political backing.
However, Joseph said the policy would be difficult to implement because nearly 55 percent of the population lived on less than a dollar a day, and she foresaw logistical and financial problems in setting up the feeding programmes countrywide. Approximately 44,000 HIV-positive people are receiving free ARVs.
Tanzania experienced a severe drought recently, and the United Nations World Food Programme estimates that some 565,000 people are facing food shortages. Mobilising enough resources to feed the growing number of AIDS patients would be extremely difficult.
Critics have warned that persistently poor harvests would force the government to import food to sustain the programme, adding to the cost.
Joseph also thought it likely that some patients would sell the food to get money for fuel and water. Some organisations had already backed out of feeding programmes because many patients, particularly women, were so poor that they would rather give the food to their children, while their own health continued to deteriorate.
Source: Pronut-HIV
posted by AIDS-Care-Watch at 9:56 am
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