THA Deputy Chief Secretary and Secretary of Health, Wellness and Social Protection Dr Faith BYisrael says she fully supports an HIV/Aids activist’s public call for Government to change its policy and allow pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) medication – which can prevent people from contracting HIV – to be easily and readily available to the general public.
BYisrael spoke to Newsday on Monday after the call by HIV/Aids advocate Ronaldo Castillo.
The 24-year-old activist, who has been living with the virus since he was a baby, told Newsday's Zainab Kamara in an interview that it did not make sense for government to have a policy that bans PrEP from wider general public use when this country has been a signatory since 2016 to the UNAids programme to eliminate the spread of the virus by 2030.
“I agree that we should provide both pre- and post-exposure treatment to the wider population. In the fight to prevent new HIV infections, we need to utilise all of the available resources,” BYisrael said.
She added that there are medications that can be taken before exposure – also known as pre-exposure prophylaxis – or after exposure – known as post-exposure prophylaxis – but they are given under controlled circumstances by the health authorities, for example, for a victim of sexual assault.
“We should also aim to treat every client with HIV to ensure they are undetectable or with very low levels of (the) virus in their bodies.”
These three methods, combined with robust HIV/Aids-related education, she said, will provide the best opportunity to reduce new infections and deaths.
At a function on Friday to commemorate World Aids Day, she said the levels of decrease in new infections are not seen in terms of the death rate.
[caption id="attachment_1048703" align="alignnone" width="493"] HIV/Aids advocate Ronaldo Castillo. - Photo by Kambe Lovelace[/caption]
“When we look at the numbers, we recognise that there is actually (growth) in terms of the number of people who are still contracting HIV. And this is so even at this point, when we have all of the information, because we have the condoms, because we have the education, because we have the medication.
“We should actually be at the point where, when you go to the drugstore, you are seeing the condoms, and they are being sold because we have the information pertaining to condom use.”
She said the same ought to apply for PrEP drugs.
She said it has been approximately 40 years since the virus was first detected in TT, yet stigmatisation remains deeply embedded, despite major advances in medicine that mean Aids is no longer a death sentence.
Many people, she said, are still very uncomfortable when it comes to speaking about sexual health and even sexuality in general.
“So when I do my talks on human sexuality, and I talk to parents, or I go into spaces where there are students, and there are parents and teachers, it is the parents and teachers who are the ones who look at me and kind of shake their heads, indicating we should not be talking about this.
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