LUSAKA Province permanent secretary Wamunyina Muwana is concerned that people are shunning antiretroviral therapy (ART) due to lack of proper health facilities.
Mr Muwana said most people want to access ART services in secure facilities that provide a sense of confidentiality to them.
Mr Muwana was speaking during the official handover of Mwembeshi ART centre in Chilanga on Thursday.
The ART centre was built by the Association for Aid and Relief (AAR) of Japan at the cost of US$760,000.
AAR Japan is a non-governmental organisation with an objective to extend emergency and long-term support to people in need of help.
Mr Muwana said there are many challenges in providing ART, including long distances that people are forced to travel to access the services.
“The challenge is that not all health facilities are able to provide ART and this means that people living with HIV have to go to other facilities which in many cases are situated far from their homes,” Mr Muwana said.
He said infrastructure is a big challenge that Government is facing.
And Japanese ambassador to Zambia Kiyoshi Koinuma said the Mwembeshi centre was built to ease the challenges that people face in accessing ART.
Mr Koinuma said failure to access ART services has adverse effects on individuals and communities.
He appealed to residents to jealously guard the infrastructure for them to derive maximum benefits from it.
And Chilanga medical office ART coordinator Godfrey Zulu said Mwembeshi Health centre provides services to over 12,000 people and that 2,500 clients are on ART.
Mr Zulu said the facility will ease people’s access to ART in Mwembeshi.
No comments:
Post a Comment