Developing a basic package of preventive care in Uganda
This is a couple of years old but the idea resonates with more recent calls for horizontal programming to meet the wider health needs of populations with high HIV prevalence. The CDC created the Basic Preventive Care Program, recently mentioned again in the KaiserNetwork news summary.
In the last few years, there has
been a substantial increase in funding for HIV programmes, but how can
antiretroviral treatment be delivered in a setting where few people
have access to even the most basic health care?“To begin to cope with providing
HIV care in this context” said Dr. Mermin “we felt that it would be
important to prevent illness as well as treat it. particularly in rural
areas where the majority of people live several kilometres from a
health centre and heath centres have only limited diagnostic and
treatment capacity.”Rather than make people travel to
care, his team explored what types of basic care could be delivered to
people directly in their own homes, by providing people with as many of
the tools for prevention of illness as possible.“Our goal was to develop a
standard package of evidence-based preventions that will reduce
morbidity and mortality among persons with HIV and lower the chance or
HIV transmission,” said Dr. Mermin.Since people with HIV live within
a family and community context in rural Africa, the CDC approached
interventions through the lens of treating the whole family…
Filed under: Uncategorized