Manual on HIV/AIDS management launched

Saturday, December 6, 2008 (The Mirror Pg 33)

By Rebecca Kwei
The acting Director of the Centre for Tropical Clinical Pharmacology and Therapeutics, Dr Alex Dodoo, has called for safety monitoring of all facilities providing anti-retroviral therapy (ART) to People Living with HIV/AIDS (PLWHA) in Ghana.
He said HIV was now considered a chronic disease and patients would be on medication for a long time hence the need to document the side effects of the drugs and how to manage them.
Dr Dodoo was speaking at the launch of a manual titled “Managing ART-Induced Adverse Events in Ghana” in Accra.
The 24-page manual is to assist healthcare workers as well as People Living with HIV/AIDS (PLWHA) to know the common side effects associated with anti-retroviral drugs (ARVs) in Ghana. It was funded by the Ghana AIDS Commission.
Additionally the manual also provides information on the side effects and how they can be managed with or without medicines.
Dr Dodoo said the benefits of anti-retroviral therapy (ART) in prolonging the lives of PLWHAs have been clearly established.
However, he noted that the benefits could be greatly reduced if patients do not adhere to treatment, adding that several factors including treatment-associated side effects were known to reduce adherence to ARTs.
Giving a background to the manual, he said it was developed following a pilot pharmacovigilance study in Ghana, which documented the most common side effects to ARVs in selected healthcare facilities providing ARTs in Ghana.
The study, which covered the Atua, St Martins, Koforidua Regional Hospital and the Police Hospital, was undertaken from March 2007 to February 2008. It also identified reasons for switching patents from one drug to another.
Some of the reported side effects of ARVs were anaemia, numbness, mild and severe rashes, insomnia, tiredness, pigmentation of the skin and nails, diarrhoea, vomiting and peeling of skin.
Mr Raymond Tetteh, a Specialist Pharmacist and Adherence Counsellor at the Korle Bu Teaching Hospital, said out of the 12,000 HIV patients registered at the hospital only 5,000 were on ART.
The Chief Pharmacist of the Korle Bu Teaching Hospital, Mr James Kyei, who launched the manual, said the issue of side effects discourages some patients from taking their medication.
He commended the team that worked on the manual for a good work done and expressed the hope that it would help all those associated with the management of HIV/AIDS in the various treatment sites.
Mr Kyei said science was dynamic and called for a review of the manual from time to time to enable it meet the challenges of the day.