By RASHAD ROLLE

Tribune Senior Reporter

rrolle@tribunemedia.net

TREATMENT for HIV/AIDS has remained stable during the COVID-19 pandemic but testing for the virus declined by 55 percent in 2020, according to Dr Nikkiah Forbes, director of the National HIV/AIDS and Infectious Disease Programme.

Her comment at an Office of the Prime Minister press conference yesterday came as the world marked World Aids Day on Wednesday.

“When we had the outbreak (of COVID-19) in March 2020 and the difficult year that we had, we did continue to provide HIV care and other options,” Dr Forbes said. “In fact our offices, our clinics, stayed open throughout those lockdowns. The good thing is that treatment did not decline significantly. We were able to keep just about the same amount of people on treatment, but testing did decline by about 55 percent in the year 2020.

“We are now making steps to expand testing and there are testing opportunities. For example, we had several campaigns leading up to World Aids Day.

“There’s free HIV testing through the government system, through our centre and the National Reference Lab.

“There are other options that people can get testing, through the Public Hospitals Authority and the clinics for example or at your private doctor’s office and we are in the process of validating the HIV self-testing which is something that is needed and in theory it has been supported across the Caribbean and in The Bahamas.

“It does require a validation step and we are looking at how it can be validated and look at the acceptability and accuracy for patients and how they’re linked to care. We hope that we’ll be able to announce that that’s available soon.”

Dr Forbes said HIV/AIDS infections declined 53 percent from 2010 to 2019 while deaths from AIDS have dropped 52 percent.

At the end of 2020, she said, there were 4,700 people in The Bahamas living with HIV as new infections continue to decline.

She said no cases of mother-to-baby transmission of the virus were recorded in 2020, 2019 or 2015.

“Unfortunately, we do still have cases in the single digits in other years,” she said, “one or two babies are still sadly born with HIV because their mothers do not come and get prenatal care early and they are not on antiretroviral therapy or opt not to take antiretroviral therapy.”

Dr Forbes said HIV medicine treatment has increased by 33 percent since 2013.

However, she said the country has a long way to go to meet goals. Globally, the aim is to diagnose 95 percent of people by 2025, have 95 percent of people on antiretroviral therapy and 95 percent of them virally suppressed.

“Sixty-three percent of people living with HIV were on antiretroviral therapy at the end of 2020 and 72 percent of those received the gold standard of care called an undetectable viral load,” she said.

Antiretroviral therapy is free in The Bahamas.