By Okong’o Oduya
Busia, Kenya: People living with HIV/AIDS in Budalangi Sub County are now receiving their Antiretroviral(ARV) treatment drugs from their respective homes.
According to National AIDS and STIs Control Programme head in Budalangi sub-county Dr. Phaustine Apeli, they have formed groups among people living with HIV to make it easy for them to access drugs without necessarily visiting the hospital.
“To promote the uptake of ARV drugs among the patients suffering from HIV, we thought it wise to group those suffering from HIV in Budalangi sub-county, where we organize how the drugs will be sent to the members at a central place in their villages, through the trained patients, or our officers we use one of them to collect the drugs and take them to the members in their respective groups and villages,” she noted.
Adding, that the patients being targeted are those on the island within lake Victoria due to challenges they face such as transportation problems.
“As a department they either, select one of the group members or use one of their health officers, to collect the drugs and distribute them to the affected individuals in those islands” says Dr. Apell.
“Our officers can take them the drugs or we use one of the trained members from the various groups within the island, collect the drugs and take them to their members in their respective groups. Islands such as Sigulu have a high number of people living with HIV virus but because of the challenges they face most of them find it difficult to come for drugs and if we don’t do that we may lose them,” she said.
She added, “Sigulu Island is the biggest island in our cluster with 284 patients suffering from HIV/AIDS. We have grouped them into eight groups where we have settled on one person per group who collect the drugs and take them to their group members.”
She says that the idea of forming groups for those suffering from HIV/AIDS came up after they realized that there was no need for those on ARV drugs from the islands to be visiting the hospital for drugs instead, they trained one person to collect the drugs and distribute to their members.
“When the patients visit our health facilities we encourage them to take the drugs and adhere to the instructions to weaken the virus and once we realize that they are improving, that is when we recommend the group leaders to be collecting the drugs and distribute them to members,”she said.
