[Uganda] Poverty Hinders HIV/ Aids Fight in Masaka

from All Africa

Sadab Kitatta Kaaya
Masaka

ADMINISTRATION of anti-retroviral drugs is facing a setback because patients lack enough food, the medical superintendent of Masaka Hospital has said.

Dr Nathan Kenya Mugisha said ARVs enhance a patient's appetite and many patients on the drug lack the capacity to get enough food.

"Many of our patients are poor. They don't have the means to get enough food. In turn, some of them end up giving up the drug," Mugisha said on March 15.

This was during a function at which 53 patients on ARVs received bicycles from the Aids Health Care Foundation (AHCF) at the Uganda Cares Clinic at Masaka Hospital.

According to WWW. health24.com, people living with HIV need a well-balanced diet because it slows down the onset of HIV to Aids and improves the patient's quality of life.

"Our development partners need to come in and help us assist these people to supplement their diet. This is the only way we shall achieve our goal because the patients are threatening to give up on getting treatment," he said.

Last year, the LC5 Chairman for Rakai district, Mr Vincent Semakula Settuba, told journalists that people living with HIV/Aids in the district were giving up the drug because of the high appetite for food the drug causes.

He said due to the long drought that hit the district, food production was low yet the demand was high.

Mugisha expressed worries about the low number of children on ARV treatment.

"Only 11 per cent of the patients on ARV treatment are children. This number is below the targeted 15 per cent," he said. The AHCF Africa Bureau Chief, Dr Bernard Okong, said the enrolment of ARV patients at the clinic had increased from 50 in 2001 to over 2,400 patients today.

The AHCF Vice President, Mr Peter Reis, said his organisation would facilitate over 500 people living with HIV/Aids with bicycles to ease their transport to the clinic for treatment.

He urged them to mobilise more patients for free ARV treatment.