According to a press release from the organization, which the Lusa agency had access to, there are now, in the country, a large number of people living with HIV without treatment, due to the social isolation imposed by the State of emergency decreed to prevent Covid -19.
ANASO says that it is important to create mechanisms that allow the replacement of medicines for these people, as well as those who were undergoing treatment outside the country, now prevented due to the temporary closure of air borders.
In this sense, ANASO, with support from UNAIDS, is implementing the Current Life Project, which aims to ensure that these people have guaranteed antiretrovirals (ARV) for the next three months, as well as that there are diagnostic tests for pregnant women and exposed children. HIV.
According to the organization, "a large part of people are in a panic due to information circulating on social networks, and not only, realizing that more and more ARVs will be lacking, because they are also being used in the treatment of Covid-19" .
"It is important that people with HIV are not afraid of not having medicines, because ANASO is working with INLS (National Institute for the Fight against AIDS), which is the depository for ARVs, in the search for solutions for their delivery to each one, according to their need, and this delivery will be home for those people who feel comfortable or from places of reference for those who still live with stigma and discrimination ", the note says.
The organization stresses that "the challenge is great" in relation to the current context, but it is necessary to understand that, despite the fight against the covid-19, it has not stopped fighting the great endemics, "which continue to kill people in Angola and around the world ".
ANASO calls on all people with HIV to provide basic information about who benefits from ARV, at the level of provinces, municipalities and localities.
"People on treatment and positive pregnant women should quickly contact NGOs [non-governmental organizations] that support them or ANASO focal points at the province, municipality and locality level, to provide the necessary data to coordinate the distribution at all levels ", points out the document.
When in possession of the updated data, the organization expects, in the next 15 days, to make all deliveries, to avoid accumulation of people and exposure to the new coronavirus, which has already caused two deaths in Angola, in 24 positive cases, with six still recovered. .
"The world is no longer the same, but we must not forget that in Angola there are more than 350 thousand people infected with HIV, of which more than 90 thousand are undergoing antiretroviral treatment and a large part of them need food support", emphasizes ANASO in the note.
The Current Life Project also provides food support, through basic baskets for HIV-positive people, most of whom have low incomes and are unemployed due to their condition.
To face the situation, "ANASO is developing a great solidarity campaign in favor of these people, who do not know if they are going to die of hunger or of covid-19".
