| |
Contact:
Claudia Monlouis
Friday, October 15, 2004 - One
of the biggest challenges facing the medical community in the fight to control
the spread of HIV/AIDS and other sexually transmitted diseases lies in
identifying persons, who are in the asymptomatic stage of the infection; this
means that they do not have any symptoms.
Speaking at an HIV/AIDS forum recently, Chief Medical Officer in the Ministry of
Health, Dr. Stephen King warned that “unless persons go for a test, they will
not know their status for a very long period of time and will therefore, deny
themselves of the required treatment or make changes to their sexual behaviour”.
“Identification and treatment of people who do not come in, who are
asymptomatic, do not have symptoms or do not come in, because they choose not to
come in is very difficult”, Dr. King said. He said further, “HIV in particular,
you would appreciate has a large time in its natural history in a human being,
when it is asymptomatic”.
Driving the point home more forcefully, Dr. King said, “Many of us here do not
know whether we are HIV Positive or not. Many of us out there do not know; if
you haven’t tested you don’t know. You don’t feel it, you don’t know it, it
doesn’t give you a headache; it’s asymptomatic – no symptoms.”
Dr. King pointed out that persons must realise that HIV is in many ways a silent
disease. At this time, the Health sector is relying on a system of contact
tracing based on information gathered from persons who test positive for
HIV/AIDS.
|
