Despite meeting all standards in the treatment, resistance may have developed in patients, the center said. If ART drugs fail to help patients it is called drug resistance. [break]
“Treatment will fail if the resistance develops in the patient and in that case second line treatments have to be started for them,” Dr Hemanta Chandra Ojha, who looks after treatment care and support at NCASC, said. He said that second line treatment will be more costly and poses several health risks for the patient.
Doctors say that resistance could develop if infected people who have already started ART treatment discontinue the drugs. Significant numbers of people are ´lost to follow up´ treatment in Nepal.
Data provided by the center shows that 704 people are in the lost to follow up list. “They have not come in contract for more than four months,” Dinesh Bista, monitoring and evaluation associate at NCASC, said.
Likewise, 102 are in the ´missing list´. The 102 have not come into contract for the past three months.
According to the center, those who do not come in contact for three months are put in the missing list and those who are out of contact for more than four months end up in the lost to follow up list.
If people in the missing or lost to follow up list come back into contact treatment will be restarted for them. But a study has not been conducted on whether the drugs still work for them.
“For the first time we are going to conduct surveillance of the patients,” Dr Ojha said. He said the study will be conducted at those ART sites which are providing services to a large number of patients and at sites providing treatment to children.
The World Health Organization (WHO) will provide technical support to the government to conduct the surveillance. The Global Fund will provide financial assistance.
“The study will be conducted in the ongoing fiscal year and we are working on the plan,” Ojha added.
The center said that a search program is on to find people who discontinued the drugs. Training has been imparted to Female Community Health Volunteers concerning the seriousness of discontinuing HIV drugs. They are asked to send such patients to the centers for treatment, the center said.
More training will be imparted to them in this regard.
Among 11,244 people living with HIV\AIDS who started ART treatment, 6,942 are currently receiving treatment. The center said that 1,108 people infected with the virus have died of the disease. The missing 2,378 might have transferred to other treatment centers, the center added.
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