CAPE TOWN, Nov. 20 (Xinhua) -- As the World AIDS Day is approaching on December 1, Doctors without Borders (MSF) on Monday called for greater efforts to reduce high HIV/AIDS mortality rate in South Africa.
Despite significantly improved access to antiretroviral (ARV) treatment to 4.2 million people, major challenges remain to reduce HIV/AIDS mortality in South Africa, MSF said while launching an anti-AIDS campaign in Khayelisha, an impoverished township in Cape Town.
With the total number of people living with HIV estimated at approximately 7.06 million in 2017, South Africa has an unacceptably high HIV/AIDS death rate of 180,000 deaths a year, according to MSF.
In Khayelitsha which is hard hit by the HIV pandemic, around a third of people on ARVs for 10 years have disengaged from care at some point, MSF Medical Coordinator for South Africa, Amir Shroufi said.
"HIV services across South Africa must be adapted to better retain people in care, and support the return of those who stop accessing services," said Shroufi.
In order to reach the 40 percent of people living with HIV who still have not started ARVs, scaling up public access to new tools such as self-tests will be necessary, he said.
Longer prescription times, and having community pick-up points or organized support groups for receiving medication can allow people to choose what works best for them at a given point in time during their lifelong treatment journey, Shroufi suggested.
He said clinic staff must be equipped with skills to welcome back people who may have temporarily stopped taking treatment, and to screen for and recognize when patients have advanced HIV or opportunistic infections.
In the context of under-resourced environments, nurses and lay counsellors must be capacitated to support this work, Shroufi said.
Also on Monday, the Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS) launched a Right to Health report which highlights the importance of ensuring access to health care for all HIV patients.
The report mentions the substantial progress South Africa has made in scaling up ARV treatment to 4.2 million people.
Responding to the report, the MSF said that in light with the unacceptably high HIV/AIDS mortality in South Africa, UNAIDS should include mortality reduction targets in reporting and monitoring anti-HIV/AIDS progress.
MSF urged UNAIDS to help governments like South Africa to focus on and invest in measures to achieve this goal.
South Africa has the highest HIV prevalence rate in the world, with approximately 12.6 percent of its population infected by the disease, according to Statistics South Africa (Stats SA).
