World Aids Day commemorated

Bez Valley Clinic hosted an Aids Day commemoration on December 10.

Sister Alice Kunene, the operations manager at the clinic, said the event was held to commemorate World Aids Day.

She said one of the purposes of the day was to educate the community about the importance of knowing your status and complying with treatment.

“World Aids Day is commemorated every year, not necessarily on a particular day, but the whole month of December. We are here to talk about this pandemic disease, which is affecting so many people. It affects our families, babies and elderly. It does not choose and it affects everybody,” said Sister Kunene.

She said the day was about reminding people of the importance of knowing their status.

She also added that there are patients who are complying with the treatment and they can see the difference.

Sister Kunene said people must remember that they need to make some changes, should they test positive.

“Change your lifestyle and make some lifestyle choices that will ensure you live healthily and happily with the virus.

“If you have tested and you are negative, you need to try and keep your status that way,” she added.

Sister Kunene believes the Department of Health has come a long way in ensuring that those people who are diagnosed with the virus get the necessary treatment to ensure that their lives are prolonged by providing them with anti-retroviral drugs.

“One of our main challenges is those who still don’t believe they can be infected with HIV. That makes our work difficult because they cannot take medication when they don’t believe in the medication,” she said.

“When patients are diagnosed with HIV, we check their CD4 count. If it is 350 or less, we take the patients for adherence counselling so that they know about the drugs they are going to take. It is important for people to take the medication as they are instructed,” said Sister Kunene.

She said people must know that when they start taking the treatment, it is a lifelong treatment and they cannot not stop as soon as they feel a little better.

The event was attended by community members and health workers from the City of Johannesburg (CoJ).

Sister Delani Castro, a professional nurse who works with TB and HIV/Aids patients, said the main challenge is that people in the community move around a lot. Many people do not collect their medication and it is hard for health care workers to locate the patients.

“Some patients give us wrong address and when we go looking for them, we find that the address given does not exist. This affects treatment because TB becomes resistant and they spread the virus quickly,” she added.

Sister Castro said people who take their ARV and TB medication see an improvement in their health and can continue for many years if they live healthily.