There is a largely ignored reality in Homa Bay, Kenya: 30 percent of the population is HIV positive. While advancements in HIV treatment have changed the prognosis of living with the disease…
AIDS
Continues
To
Kill.
Not only in Kenya, but around the world. One million people died from AIDS last year.
Antiretroviral drugs, known as ARVs, have been found to be effective in keeping the virus at bay since the late 1980s. For many years, these drugs were not available in Africa due to their prohibitive cost. Now, in Kenya, “ARV drugs are available. Diagnostics are available,” explains Dr. Berna Gurer, a physician with MSF in Homa Bay.
“So the question is: why are HIV patients still dying?”
The answer is a complex mix of stigma and access to care. Many patients do not know they are living with the disease since they have never been tested. When they start their treatment at a late stage, the virus is much harder to manage. Others interrupt their treatment at some point and become resistant to standard drugs. These people will need a different type—called second-line—for care. As nations decrease their funding for HIV treatment around the world, it will only become more difficult to get reliable access to care. It does not have to be this way.
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