HARARE - Tatenda Moyo, 38, a resident of Highfield slum in the Zimbabwean capital tested positive for HIV and was last month put on anti retroviral therapy. (Pictured: Queuing for medication takes its toil on older members of society)
Her biggest problem today is not disease, but spending the whole day at Wilkins Infectious Diseases Hospital queuing for 60 ‘Stalanev’ tablets that will last her a month. It cost her US$6 to get the HIV CD4 tests done, money which she struggled to raise. Today she needs another US$1 to get ARV drugs, and another US$1 for transport. Not only is collecting tablets a gruelling day-long process, but being put on ARVs in the first place is a mission.
“I arrived at the hospital around 7:30am and I was No. 182. The first day we queued the whole day for blood tests. They wanted to do the CD4 count and I was very hungry; I’d had no breakfast and lunch and could barely walk,” she told ***The Zimbabwean. “I was given Cotrimoxazole drugs that Wednesday pending the CD4 count results. I was told to return on Friday for the results. After spending the whole day at Wilkins that Friday, I had to be supported and put in a wheelchair to get the results. And the result shocked me. I had a CD4 count of only 32.”
A healthy HIV positive person must have a CD4 count of between 500 and 1500. And at Wilkins, only patients with a CD4 count of 200 and below can be put on ARVs because of drug shortages. The rest are put on Cotrimoxazole, which helps rebuild the immune system. “I was immediately told they were putting me on ARVs, but my major problem is that I often I go without food and during such times I feel dizzy and nauseous after swallowing the drugs,” the vegetable vendor, who is a mum of two, said.
She says she swallows one combination drug in the morning, Stalanev, an acronym for Stavudine, Lamuvidine and Nevirapine. In the evening, she swallows three tablets, another Stalanev and two Cotrimoxazoles. And this is for life. She says employment is scarce, and if available, sometimes she feels too weak to work.
“Look at my dependents – I spend US$60 on rent and I dont have enough for food, so we have to skip eating at times,” she said. “When I collect my ARVs, I am advised to eat well, but how do I manage a balanced diet?” The necessary monthly trips to refill ARV prescriptions cost time and money that may be in short supply. On the day she spoke to The Zimbabwean, Tendai had had only a cup of black tea for breakfast and no lunch; a concerned neighbour has brought her some porridge “to help me swallow my drugs”.
Many programmes supporting HIV-affected households have scaled back because of donor fatigue. “Its a grim situation. You need nutrition therapy also, but it is not unusual to have a family share only a plate of food in a day,” said an aid worker with Medicins Sans Frontiers, an aid group assisting those on ARVs with monthly grocery hampers. The aid agency is providing food subsidies of about US$20 per month to 2,000 extremely vulnerable households, including bed-ridden HIV-positive people.
Aid workers say its pointless dishing out drugs to people who cannot afford food because ARVs require one to have a proper diet, and on an empty stomach, there is a tendency to default and face a consequent risk of drug resistance. This is Tatenda’s daily reality. She is not optimistic and says the government has never sent any food support to her area.
Post published in: News