Number of people on ARVs increases by 30,000 in three months

What you need to know:

Increment. Number of people enrolled on ART increased from 680,000 to 713,744 between June and September 2014.

KAMPALA.
The number of people starting the HIV/Aids anti-retroviral treatment (ART) in Uganda has hit 713,744.

In just three months between June and September 2014, a total of 33,744 new people enrolled for HIV/Aids treatment, raising the overall number from the previous 680,000 to 713,744 people.

Mr Joshua Musinguzi, the manager for the Aids Control Programme at the Ministry of Health, said of the new number on anti-retrovirals, 659,064 are adults while 54,680 are children below 15 years. The number of people infected still stands at 1.6 million.

According to World Health Orgnanisation, the increase is significant due to the fact that it has happened after the ministry rolled out a new policy which saw the number of people eligible for HIV/Aids treatment increase.

“Before, HIV-positive people who had a CD-4 count of 350 and below were the ones eligible but we advised the ministry to include those who are not in a bad health state so that they do not get worse before administering the drugs. This included those who had a CD-4 count of 500 and below,” said a WHO official who declined to be named because he was not allowed to comment at the time.

He said people with a low CD-4 count become very ill which made them eligible to anti-retroviral treatment, adding that those who have a slightly higher count although not yet ill enroll on treatment in order to curb any major health issue.

With 375 new infections every day, translating into 137,000 new cases in 2014, the number of people who enrolled on treatment is more than the number of people getting infected.

By June 2014, Uganda was spending Shs54 billion on ARVs every month to cater for about 551,000 people who had enrolled on the first line of ART.
There are at least 800,000 deserving HIV-positive people who have not enrolled on treatment.