Intrigued by statistics showing that almost a 100 per cent of the number of persons living with the Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV) know their status, the Ministry of Health and Wellness says it is now trying to determine the accuracy of the data.

This comes after a report by the Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS revealed that 30,000 Jamaicans are currently living with HIV. Encouragingly, the report found that some 91 per cent of the total number of persons living with the sexually transmitted virus know their status. However, the report pointed to a troubling trend in that only 49 per cent of those who know their status are currently on antiretroviral treatment.

HIV management specialist in the Ministry of Health and Wellness, Dr Nicola Skyers, says that the figures on the number of people who know their status is riddled with inaccuracies.

“We are trying to close that gap by doing some data cleaning in the sense that some of that 91 per cent would include persons who may have died, persons who may have migrated, so we are in the process of trying to address that 91 per cent, which we think it is a little high. It looks good as an achievement, however, we are trying to clean the data to ensure that we get to a more accurate figure because the 91 per cent may be a little more higher than it actually is,” she explained.

She also noted that there are some persons who test under different names due to the stigma surrounding HIV in Jamaica, which poses a challenge in analysing the data accurately.

“We don’t really have any national identifier number so persons because of the stigma of HIV, do test under different names and as such, some of those persons would be counted in those figures because we don’t require formal identification for testing. Persons may come in and test under two or three different names but if its only one person, the figures will be inflated. We are in the process of resolving that particular issue around the 91 per cent,” she said.

Skyers noted that by the end of the calendar year, the health ministry should be able to provide an accurate figure on the number of persons living with the virus who know their status.

Stigma and discrimination

The HIV specialist noted that the stigma and discrimination surrounding persons living with the condition is still a major deterrent for persons seeking treatment.

“One of the issues that persons living with HIV face is stigma and discrimination and when we look at the data, when it comes to stigma and discrimination, a lot of the stigma and discrimination takes place at the community level. Not so much in our health facilities,” she said.

She noted that persons living with HIV tend to feel isolated because they lack family and community support.

“We have to look at how we can work together to have families work together to have families be more supportive of their family members who have HIV. That kind of support is what a lot of people with HIV lack. So you have this diagnosis, you can’t share with your families, you can’t share with your close friends, so you sit there and all of these mental health issues that you go through start to develop,” she said.

She noted that in order to tackle the issue of HIV discrimination in society, there needs to be sensitisation at the community level.

Dr Kevin Harvey, Caribbean regional director of the AIDS Healthcare Foundation, says greater work needs to be done to encourage persons living with HIV to seek treatment.

“We have to do some work to reduce the stigma and discrimination that persons living with HIV face to provide stigma-free service, reduce the inequitable access to care in order to improve that component. I think we have to do some more work to encourage persons to get on care immediately when they are diagnosed and not wait for treatment as they did in the past, they must go on their treatment now,” he said.

Harvey is imploring persons who have tested positive for the virus to start treatment immediately to improve their life expectancy and reduce the risk of other individuals contracting the virus.

“All those persons who are waiting to start treatment, we are encouraging them to go now and start their treatment because this ensures that your life expectancy would be similar to someone who is not infected. It also ensures that you are not transmitting the virus once you become infected. So, we don’t want people to wait anymore to go on treatment like they did back in the past,” he said.

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