The United Nations said that, the Ebola outbreak in Sierra Leone has slowed down efforts to tackle HIV/AIDS in the country. Reuters reports:
The West African Ebola outbreak has halted progress in tackling HIV in Sierra Leone, shutting health clinics and scaring patients from being tested or seeking treatment, the United Nations has said.
In an internal document seen by the Thomson Reuters Foundation, the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) raised concerns that HIV prevalence and drug resistance in the country could increase as a result.
"HIV prevention activities in schools and awareness raising for the general population has been suspended due to the restriction of movement, the closure of all education institutions and the overall ban on public gathering."
Some 25 percent of patients taking antiretroviral therapy (ART) for the virus that causes AIDS are missing clinic appointments in and around Sierra Leone's capital Freetown, where the main Ebola affected communities are, Bjorkman said.
There has also been a decline of at least 70 percent in HIV testing and counselling services and logistical issues mean that essential HIV drugs are either expiring or quickly becoming out of stock, according to the UNDP document that was released internally in December.
"If this is not dealt with quickly, we risk the virus spreading to more people, more people dying of opportunistic disease like tuberculosis and the virus building up a resistance to our drugs," Bjorkman told the Thomson Reuters Foundation by telephone from Geneva.
The worst recorded outbreak of Ebola has killed more than 9,500 people, infected over 23,500 others and placed immense pressure on already weak health systems in hardest-hit Sierra Leone, Guinea and Liberia.
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