28 June 2004
Kampala — PRESIDENT YOWERI Museveni has warned against taking anti-retroviral drugs without consulting a doctor.
The President's word of caution should be taken seriously. The Ministry of Health has just launched an initiative aimed at making sure that every AIDS patient who needs anti-retroviral drugs will receive them. This initiative has raised the hopes of Ugandans living with HIV/AIDS, and also met approval from around the world.
However, utmost discipline is required to achieve the desired results. Not everyone who has HIV will immediately need ARVs. Only trained medical personnel can tell a patient when it is time to begin. These drugs are taken life-long and they have side effects, so there is no need rushing into them before the recommended time.
When on treatment, a patient has to stick to the right dose, and take the drugs according to the recommended timetable since misusing ARVs can lead to unnecessary suffering.
Even with the right dose, a person who takes ARVs has to be closely monitored by doctors to ensure that they are improving, and also to make sure they do not suffer excessively from the side effects. Through such monitoring a doctor can make a decision to change the drug combination when necessary.
The challenge for health workers, therefore, is to ensure that they educate the public massively about these drugs, using all available channels. Health workers should also ensure that every patient is adequately counselled. Often medical personnel, particularly in public health facilities, do not adequately communicate with patients, citing time constraints.
This has to change. If the scheme is to work well, medics have to create time for patients who take ARVs.
Be the first to Write a Comment!
Copyright © 2004 New Vision. All rights reserved. Distributed by AllAfrica Global Media (allAfrica.com). To contact the copyright holder directly for corrections — or for permission to republish or make other authorized use of this material, click here.
AllAfrica aggregates and indexes content from over 125 African news organizations, plus more than 200 other sources, who are responsible for their own reporting and views. Articles and commentaries that identify allAfrica.com as the publisher are produced or commissioned by AllAfrica.
