A NEW study commissioned by the Ministry of Health has revealed that alcohol and drug abuse were risk factors contributing to HIV first-line treatment failure.
BY MUNESU NYAKUDYA
The study titled Non-adherence and First-line Antiretroviral Therapy (ART) Failure Among People Living With HIV, in Bulawayo, Zimbabwe, 2016, noted that when people were under the influence of alcohol, they tended to forget to take the life-saving drug.
“Drinking alcohol is a significant independent risk factor for treatment failure; this is plausible because if one is drunk, there is a tendency of forgetting to take medication,” the study said.
“Alcohol abuse has been reported by male clients. Moreover, drug fatigue has been noticed on clients aged 20 to 35. “However, according to Conen etal (2013), drinking alcohol doesn’t increase risk of HIV treatment failure as there is no impact on CD4 cell count, but risk of treatment interruptions is higher for heavy drinkers.”
According to the study, patients who were non-adherent were 5,1 times more likely to fail first line ART, compared to those who were adherent.
The study also said that the other risk factor was lack of knowledge on adherence to ART. This was attributed to people not attending adherence sessions due to busy work schedules or those lacking money to travel to health facilities.
It said in 20,7% of cases, patients had poor knowledge.
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“Other significant patient related factors for ART failure were, stopping taking ART when they felt worse, missing taking medication the previous week, forgetting to carry medication when travelling and having insufficient food while on ART,” the study revealed.
The study also said that some of the patients stopped treatment after being misled into believing in spiritual healing. “This is after faith healers would have preached to them that by their faith they would have been healed.
“Some clients who would have travelled to neighbouring countries in search of employment opportunities would stop their medication as they are not able to come for resupply on time.”
Busy work schedules and psycho-social issues such as depression, stress due to domestic problems were other factors that led some patients not to adhere to medication.
