What Papua New Guinea can learn from Cuba to fight AIDS

By REGINALD RENAGI

The Health Ministry must now plan to send a special government medical team to Cuba to learn what that small Caribbean country does to combat Aids.

Do you know that Cuba is hailed in the world as a shining example of how to combat successfully the HIV/AIDS pandemic? Today, it has an HIV infection rate of less than 0.1 per cent, in a region that has one of the fastest growing infection rates in the world.

Not only have the authorities virtually eliminated the transmission of the virus through blood transfusion and intravenous drug use, but they have also halted transmissions involving newborns at birth.

Let us see how PNG can learn from Cuba better strategies to fight Aids in our country.  Cuba was one of the first countries to take AIDS seriously as a problem, and provide a comprehensive response combining both prevention and care.

This was not always the case.  In the 1980s, Cuba was widely condemned in the world for its harsh treatment of AIDS sufferers.  The government's initial response then was to subject people with HIV to be either isolated or quarantined. During the SARS outbreak in 2003, patients were far away from the "collective" population in sanitariums.  Not only that, but their sexual partners were subsequently traced and tested, including pregnant women and those who had travelled to Africa; were also tested.

However, at the end of the decade by late 1980s, Cubans were more knowledgeable about the epidemic, and they humanely allowed patients to leave the sanatoriums for extended periods of time. 

A few years later, the government introduced its ambulatory care treatment programme, which enabled AIDS patients to choose between living within the sanatoriums or recovering at home with family members (home-care regime).

Today, people with HIV are guaranteed access to free medical care.  They also don't get fired from their jobs because they are carrying the virus.  There is clearly a strong commitment on the part of Cuban political leadership to undertake a wide-ranging and comprehensive HIV/AIDS action plan - domestically as well as internationally.  This is part of Cuba's activist foreign policy.

In 1983, Cuba set up a National Commission on AIDS, before any cases had even been diagnosed, to educate its 11 million people. Sex education programmes were subsequently introduced in schools and TV ad campaigns informed Cubans about AIDS and the need to promote safe sex.

Over the years, the government began compiling a comprehensive database of those infected with HIV, along with their chain of sexual partners. While HIV testing is no longer compulsory, Cuban health authorities recommend it for pregnant women and those in high-risk categories. Those who do contract HIV are required to attend an eight-week education and drug support programme in a sanatorium.

Some time ago recently, Dr Barksdale, the director of the American charity, Cuban AIDS Project, was quoted as saying: "I don't know if six weeks or eight weeks are the magic numbers, but that is certainly a longer time than is given to people in the US. Who receive such a diagnosis? They may get five minutes' worth of education."

 The amazing thing to remember here is for 40-years the US economic embargo against Cuba resulted in no anti-retroviral drugs being initially available in that Caribbean island. But by 2001, Cuba's growing biotechnology sector was beginning to manufacture generic versions of several HIV/AIDS inhibitors.

Admirably, Cuba is now one of the few developing countries that actually provide its HIV/AIDS patients with a full supply of free drugs.  What's more, do you know that Cuba has sent thousands of doctors and nurses to almost every part of the world to help their valiant struggle against HIV/AIDS?

Cuba also helps in some African countries.  In Botswana, which has the highest proportion of people living with HIV in the world, Cuban medical professionals work in several clinics and hospitals to treat AIDS sufferers and to offer suggestions for prevention. For some time now, the Cuban government offers to train - at no cost - nurses and doctors from other Caribbean countries to fight the pandemic.

More strikingly, Cuba has promised to provide anti-retroviral drugs to its Caribbean friends for a cost well below market prices. What's more some countries in Latin America and Africa are seeking Cuba's assistance in their fight against Aids.

 This is even more impressive when you realise that Cuba is largely a poor, developing country locked in an undeclared war with its superpower neighbour only 145km away.

As a relatively rich and developing country, where is PNG's leadership on this critical issue? 

Cuba's approach to the HIV/AIDS pandemic is a major success story. There is much that PNG and the rest of the world can learn from this compassionate Cuban experience.

I am not even saying here that that Cuba has all the answers to the AIDS epidemic. But I strongly believe that PNG has much to learn from this small Caribbean country in many diverse and creative strategies to help us fight against the Aids pandemic here.

Cuba has a lot of potential and will offer us more to improve our national health-care regime in PNG.  Are you reading this, Minister Zibe and Secretary Malau?

I call on our government to now take up the great challenge left to the PNG health profession by former Health Minister, Sir Peter Barter when he left politics to go back to helping his people in Madang. 

So enough procrastination PNG, let's go over to Cuba now to learn something about fighting Aids.  What's more, let Cuban medical professionals (doctors, nurses, medical orderlys and other specialists) come to PNG to supplement our medical people by helping in rural PNG.  That's where the biggest threat is and need for helping our most-vulnerable population.