County News

Experts worried by the high percentage of people living with HIV skipping medication

Published

7 years ago

June 6, 2017

HIV patient displays medicines. (courtesy)

NAIROBI—Both local and international health authorities are disturbed by the evidence of high HIV treatment breakdown in Kenya.

The experts and health institutions are worried that people living with the virus are deserting medication mid way, giving the virus an upperhand in the struggle to maintain it in place.

A report by the Ministry of Health and the UN that was published last week spoke of “unacceptably” high failure degree of Anti-retrovirals (ARVs) among refugees and dwellers of Kakuma refugee camp in Northern Kenya.

The report also noted of drug resistance percentage which is 64% amidst the refugees and the residents in Kakuma.

As HIV destroys more CD4 cells and makes more copies of itself, it gradually breaks down a person’s immune system. This means someone living with HIV, who is not receiving treatment, will find it harder and harder to fight off infections and diseases.

If HIV is left untreated, it may take up to 10 or 15 years for the immune system to be so severely damaged it can no longer defend itself at all. However, the speed HIV progresses will vary depending on age, health and background.

In April, another analysis involving the Ministry of Health revealed that the emergence of a drug-resistant strain of HIV in Kenya that resisted all available first and second line medicines.

The Kakuma analysis has been prepared by the Kenya Medical Research Institute (Kemri), the US Center for Disease Control and Prevention, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, the World Health Organization and the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, UK.

A study by Brown University that examined a national sample showed that the median duration of persisting with treatment increased by more than 50 per cent between 2001 and 2010.

Between 2001 and 2003, half of the patients stopped taking HIV medications 24 months after starting them, but between 2004 and 2006 the period of persistence reached 35.4 months and n the final study period, 2007-2010, more than half the patients were still taking the medications, therefore the median had not been reached.