4 Caribbean countries to use Guyana’s expertise in HIV/AIDS treatment

Antigua and Barbuda, Belize, Trinidad and Tobago, and Jamaica will utilise Guyana’s methods in treating HIV/AIDS patients through a “South-South knowledge exchange event,” a partnership between the Ministry of Health (MOH) and Pan Caribbean Partnership Against HIV and AIDS (PANCAP).

On Monday, the three-day event kicked off at the National AIDS Programme Secretariat (NAPS) during which national AIDS programme managers and clinical care coordinators from the Caribbean examined how to utilise Guyana’s methods in treating HIV/AIDS.
The countries were chosen based on their level of healthcare services in treating infected persons.
Health Minister, Dr Frank Anthony outlined Guyana’s methods in identifying and treating patients living with HIV/AIDS while addressing the event. He explained that over the last two years, measures were implemented to accommodate anyone who may feel as though they are at risk.
“One way of doing that is obviously to do PrEP… maybe about two years ago we were only doing PrEP discordant couples and now we have changed that to make sure that PrEP is available to everybody. Anybody who feels as though they are at risk can come into one of our clinics… we go through the basic evaluation requirements and once they meet that then obviously, we’ll be able to offer them PrEP,” he said.
Traditionally, while persons had to be counselled before getting tested for HIV/AIDS, this is no longer required as self-testing is becoming more prevalent.
“We have started doing self-testing, it is not as comprehensive as we would like it to be, but we have started, and we have some amount of experience with self-testing, and hopefully we’ll be able to increase the coverage as we go. So, that too is a very interesting experience because I think initially, we had some resistance, but it’s about education and working with people and building trust and so forth.”
Although a number of testing and treatment sites are operational across the country, the Health Minister expressed that he would like to see more.
“So, in each of these ten administrative regions, we want to make sure these services are available.”
The Ministry has worked with the Pan American Health Organisation (PAHO) to establish guidelines for the roll-out of PrEP to the population.
Additionally, Dr Anthony noted that Guyana has a “robust” treatment and care programme and that the Ministry is aware of new medications to treat persons living with HIV/AIDS.
“In terms of treatment and care, we have, I think, a fairly robust programme. We’re also working to look at the various medications that we use perhaps to revise the guidelines to reflect newer ways of treatment. We’re also cognisant that also, in terms of PrEP, there are new medications that are becoming available,” Dr Anthony said.
He noted that the Ministry is in the process of exploring injectable medication for PrEP that is now becoming available on the market because “we think the efficacy can be good”.
Meanwhile, the Minister briefly stated that the Ministry, through a collaboration with PAHO, is expected to get a reasonable cost for Hep C treatment, through the Strategic Fund.
“We have put together a small unit where we are looking at the epistemology for Hep C. We have built a database for these patients and we have concluded a collaboration with PAHO to be able to get the Hep C medication at a very reasonable cost.”
PANCAP Knowledge Coordinator, Dr Shanti Singh-Anthony said Guyana was selected because of the progress made by the NAPS in PrEP and HIVST implementation and the wealth of experience to be shared with the Region. The exchange event is being funded by the United States Agency for International Development (USAID).
The three-day event will focus on Guyana’s experience in implementing Pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) and HIV self-testing (HIVST).