Healthcare advocacy campaigns for HIV awareness and prevention

¶ … healthcare advocacy campaign for individuals living with HIV.

The Health Issue

The Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV) is a virus that attacks and damages the human body's immune system. The immune system exists for one key purpose to fight off foreign bodies and diseases or infections that get into the body. This means that if someone contracts HIV, then he or she becomes vulnerable to various kinds of dangerous infections and diseases, which may cause death. As the virus continues to weaken the immune system, the system may weaken to the level that it cannot fight off infections or diseases anymore. At such a stage, the Human Immunodeficiency Virus may result in a more life-threatening disease referred to as Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome (AIDS). However, not every person who has HIV contracts AIDS. Research has found that more and more elderly individuals have HIV / AIDS. This is largely due to enhanced treatments and clinical interventions that are helping HIV infected individuals to live longer. In the United States about 20% of people living with the virus are over the age of 55. Many of these individuals were found to be HIV positive when they were a lot younger. Still, thousands of old people are getting infected with the virus every year (HIV, AIDS, and Older People -- National Institute on Aging, n.d). More and more blacks and Hispanics are also getting infected with HIV. In fact, more than 50% of the population of individuals living with HIV or AIDS comprise of either Hispanics or African-American. The number of women getting infected with the disease is also steadily increasing. Substance abusers are also at high risk of contracting the virus, especially in cases where they share needles.

The Plan: Improving the National HIV and AIDS agenda of Tanzania

Specific Objectives: Commencing in the late 1990s, drug use through injection, mainly heroin, has actually become extensive in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, and is threatening to turn into a main driver of the HIV epidemic. Approximately 50,000 Tanzanian citizens inject drugs, out of 42% are predicted to be HIV positive. Even though this particular group presently represents just a fragment of the 1.4 million people who are HIV positive in Tanzania, these figures actually set off a warning for the government of Tanzania as well its stakeholders (Tanzania - Pangaea Global AIDS -- Advancing the health and well-being of people most affected by AIDS, n.d).With assistance from Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the Ministry of Health and Social Welfare (MoHSW), the Tanzanian Drug Control Commission (DCC), and the Zanzibar AIDS Control Program (ZACP) all approached Pangaea to aid in coming up with a nationwide response to the HIV epidemic and Tanzania amidst people who inject drugs (PWID). As of May 2010, these attempts led to the initiation of national principles, which shall help develop access to HIV / AIDS prevention for people who inject drugs in Tanzania (Tanzania - Pangaea Global AIDS -- Advancing the health and well-being of people most affected by AIDS, n.d). Outreach services were, later on, started in 2010 with the skill of Dr. Douglas Bruce, Pangaea assisted in establishing the medication assisted treatment (MAT) program for PWIDs at Muhimbili National Hospital located in Dar es Salaam. These MAT clinics give the patients methadone and links the patients to other care and treatment as a part of a comprehensive package of services meant for the PWIDs. By May 2102, more than 400 PWIDs had started methadone treatment at Muhimbili.

Tanzania needs to work on more expansion of these goals. This is because in 2013, 1.4 million citizens were HIV positive, corresponding to an approximated HIV incidence of about 5%. In 2013, around 72,000 individuals were freshly infected by the virus, and around 78,000 individuals lost their lives to an HIV associated disease (HIV and AIDS in Tanzania -- AVERT, 2015). In spite of these figures, Tanzania has actually done well in controlling the HIV epidemic in the last decade. Increasing access to antiretroviral treatment has assisted Tanzania reduce the effect of the HIV epidemic. As an outcome, between 2005 and 2013, the number of individuals losing their lives to AIDS associated diseases reduced by 44% and the total figure of individuals that are HIV positive in the country has dropped to 5.1% from 7% from 2003/4 to 2011/12.