Uganda to unveil new injectable HIV treatment in 2021

By Tonny Abet, The Monitor

Uganda Aids Commission Director General, Dr Nelson Musoba, has said clinical trials on new injectable HIV treatment is being finalised and government will unveil it next year.

Officiating at the commemoration of Zero Discrimination Day in Kampala on Sunday, Musoba said the treatment will reduce the problem stigma and discrimination present to Uganda’s ambition of ending HIV prevalence as a major public health threat by 2030.

“Research is in advanced stages on the injectable treatment for HIV that patients will take one dose after every eight weeks. This new treatment comes with a lot of relief and convenience,” he said.

Musoba said the treatment will also curb the low adherence to medication as it will be unlikely that patients will forget the treatment schedules.

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The function was in Bwaise, a Kampala suburb, one of the HIV-prone areas in the city and was held in cooperation with Uganda Network of Law Ethics and HIV/Aids (UGANET) to raise awareness and bring government officials to dialogue with HIV infected slum women and girls who “suffer from stigma and discrimination.”

Dora Kiconco, UGANET Executive Director, a coalition of around 30 organisations that deal with HIV issues in Uganda, said women and girls with HIV remain disproportionately affected by discrimination.

Antiretrovirals

“It is absurd that maids are discriminated in homes and several other people refused jobs because they are HIV positive,” Kiconco said.

Imaculate Owomugisha, the head of advocacy and strategic litigation at UGANET, a non-profit organisation that gives free legal aid to marginalised people facing discrimination, says the problem is still huge in Uganda.

“Three decades of experience in the global response to HIV show that human rights based approaches to HIV prevention, treatment, care and support -coupled with enabling legal environments to safeguard rights – help reduce people’s vulnerability to HIV,” Owumoguisha said.

Daily in Uganda, up to 21 per cent of men and 20 per cent of women skip taking their HIV drugs in fear that their status will be known and that they will face discriminated against, according to the 2019 Stigma Index for Persons Living with HIV (PLHIV).