Maravi

ARVs, condoms and new HIV infections

COMMENT - HIV in Africa is a statistical construct. Instead of being alarmed at the high estimate of HIV infection nationwide, the government should demand proper testing procedures instead, which would lower national HIV prevalence rates enormously. First of all, no more Antenatal Clinic Surveys of pregnant women only, but statistically representative Demographic and Health Surveys. Stop testing mainly women (84.3% of all tested were women, only 80,659 out of 511,266 were men; 71% of all tested were pregnant women at antenatal clinics - I quote: "The high number of females tested was mostly from the PMTCT programme which accounted for 364,331". This is not representative of the Zambian people in general.), and start doing statistically representative DHS surveys, and I guarantee you, HIV prevalence in Zambia will not be 14.3%, it will be well under 3%, probably much lower than that. Disproportionately testing women inflates both true positives and false positives in HIV surveys. How testing pregnant women overestimates HIV infection rates has been shown elsewhere in Africa, How AIDS in Africa Was Overstated - Reliance on Data From Urban Prenatal Clinics Skewed Early Projections, by Craig Timberg, Washington Post, April 6 2006; and in this report on the UNICEF DHS in Swaziland, the presumption of HIV infection among girls was reduced from 32.5% (1/3 of all women), to 6%. Time for Zambia to only do DHS testing and use Western Blot confirmation tests of positive ELISA screening tests.

Secondly, use Western Blot confirmation tests, to test positive ELISA screening tests in these surveys. ELISA tests only for either p24 or p55. Western Blot tests for all 9 or 10 (depending how you count) HIV proteins - p18, p24, p39, p55, p32, p52, p68, p41, p120 and p160 - although a selection is made, which varies from country to country.

If Zambia only does DHS surveys and checks positive ELISAs in surveys, I am extremely confident that HIV rates in Zambia will go from 14% to under 3%. HIV/AIDS is one of the biggest scams of the 20th century. As an example, the DRC has an HIV infection rate of 1.3%, according to their 2007 DHS.

I quote from the DRC's 2007 DHS: " According to the EDS-RDC, 1.3 percent of the population age 15-49 years is HIV-positive. The prevalence is 1.6 percent for women and 0.9 percent for men. "

Time to stop wasting everyone's time and resources, and start doing the tests right.

ARVs, condoms and new HIV infections
By The Post
Sun 11 Mar. 2012, 12:00 CAT

LAST week Professor Nkandu Luo lamented at what she said were incredibly high new HIV infections of 226 daily. Nkandu concluded that "closing the tap on new HIV and AIDS infections" was the only way to defeat the scourge.

She warned that the HIV epidemic will continue for a very long time unless it was tackled differently. Nkandu also warned that unless the epidemic is addressed in a fundamental and meaningful way, Zambia's socioeconomic development will be at risk.

With a prevalence rate of 14.3 per cent, Nkandu's fears about the HIV epidemic are justified, have a basis, are not from without. And we therefore exhort all our leaders, political and otherwise, and all our people to meditate on this issue, delve deeply into it and with broad-mindedness listen to everyone, without anyone thinking they are the owners of the absolute truth.

There will no longer be one single thinker on this issue of HIV and AIDS. It is clear to us now that hundreds of thousands, millions of thinkers can make up the thinker our time needs on this issue.

It is clear that old ideas and approaches are failing to conquer HIV and AIDS. New ideas to prepare our people for the future are needed. There is need for a new awareness on this issue. We are not saying this to mean that we completely lack awareness on this issue.

What we are trying to say is that the issue of HIV and AIDS, given our experience of close to three decades, requires a lot more awareness, and that awareness will be built by adding together the awareness of what is happening and the awareness of what is going to happen.

It has to be built by adding together more than just one thought and the best ethical and humane ideas of more than one religion, the sum total of the preaching of many scientists, medical doctors, politicians.

Our battle is not only a battle for survival, it is not just surviving for the sake of surviving, no. Progressive people, well-meaning people have always fought for the future. It is clear that the methods that have been used so far to deal with the spread of HIV and AIDS are starting to compound the problem.

While it cannot be denied, and cannot be morally, medically, socially, politically or otherwise discouraged, Anti-Retroviral drugs (ARVs) are not helping to stop the spread of HIV and AIDS. While ARVs are helping many of our people live a much healthier and less painful life with the virus in their bodies, this is in some way making some feel they can live a normal sexual life, have unprotected sex and go on with their sex life as if nothing has happened to them.

ARVs have worked wonders for some of our people to a point where some of them no longer exhibit the clinical symptoms which used to warn others of the dangers they carried. Today, most of the people living with HIV or AIDS who are on ARVs look very fine; can't be suspected in any way of carrying the virus. This has opened them to having unprotected sex with others, to spreading the virus to their unsuspecting sexual partners.

People are no longer dying from HIV and AIDS at the rate they used to. This in itself means that those living with the virus - if there is no discipline, care or compassion on their part - can easily spread the virus to others thereby increasing, compounding the problem of HIV and AIDS in our country.

With more and more people looking well with ARVs, fewer and fewer people are testing for HIV - they don't seem to care about knowing their status and of those they want to have sex with.

Our campaign against the spread of HIV and AIDS also seems to be dying; there is no life in it. Activism about AIDS is also dying. And less money seems to be going into fighting the spread of HIV and AIDS. Those who used to fund the campaigns against HIV now seem to be more concerned with other problems like malaria.

It also seems that condoms are not doing much to halt the spread of this horrible virus. With this one cannot fail to stress the importance of preventative measures.

Clearly, in the present circumstances where no cure for HIV and AIDS is available, prevention seems to be the only sure way of combating this problem. We want to encourage the efforts undertaken in that direction and hope they can still be intensified.

We regret the fact that the emphasis that the Church had put on prevention was not taken very seriously. More emphasis was put on the use of condoms and on ARVs. It is most regrettable that little attention is paid to the fact that faithfulness to the Gospel's teaching on conjugal fidelity as the single most effective method of preventing the spread of this tragic illness.

The Church had strongly objected to the dissemination of the view that the use of condoms is the remedy against this epidemic. The Church warned that besides the immorality involved in the indiscriminate distribution and use of condoms, we must be aware of how much they contribute to spreading a false sense of security and encouraging promiscuity which can only aggravate the existing problem.

We may not totally agree with the church on this approach, but it cannot be denied that condoms and ARVs have serious challenges, they have not worked to expectations in halting the spread of the virus. New approaches, new remedies are required in addition to all these other approaches. For whatever condoms and ARVs have achieved, the truth is that the virus is still with us and it is spreading, infecting 226 new people every day.

A remedy has to be found. We cannot continue on this ostrich-like behaviour.
We have to face this problem head-on, once again. HIV and AIDS is clearly a disaster, effectively wiping out the development gains of the past decades and sabotaging the future. We once again have to move from rhetoric to action, and action at an unprecedented intensity and scale.

Let's get back the militancy we seem to have lost in this fight. Let's put more time and resources in this fight which we all thought we were winning but which the figures indicate otherwise.

Let's get more people tested. Let's get everyone back to work on this issue.

Labels: CORRUPTION, HIV/AIDS, NKANDU LUO, UNAIDS

posted by MrK @ 5:37 PM