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Nutritional support for AIDS patients vital:WFP

Aarti Dhar

TORONTO: The United Nations World Food Programme has called for action among all stakeholders in the fight against AIDS to make food and nutritional support part of the essential package of care for people affected by HIV. Donor countries have poured billions of dollars into retrovirals and other medication to counter the growing impact of AIDS in Africa, Asia and Latin America with barely a thought to nutrition. "It is time to deliver more than drugs,'' Robin Jackson, chief of World Food Programme (WFP) HIV/AIDS Service said here at the XVI International AIDS Conference.

It is time to deliver cost-effective and comprehensive programmes that include the basic food and nutritional need of people living with HIV/AIDS and their families, he said. According to Mr. Jackson, a new study had concluded that patients who start new antiretroviral therapy while they are malnutritioned are six times more likely to die than patients who are well nourished. The main reason could be that malnutrition reduces patients' ability to absorb the potent triple-drug antiretroviral therapy and leaves them unable to benefit from the medicine.

Side effects

Malnourished individuals also find it harder to cope with the therapy's debilitating side effects and may take longer to recover their body's immunity to infection.

Food is often cited by people living with and affected by HIV/AIDS as their greatest and most urgent need. Yet, food has been forgotten in the standard treatment, care and support of HIV/AIDS, Mr. Jackson pointed out, Nutrition interventions for HIV programmes are often overlooked in the international HIV policy debate and they remain critically under-funded.

The World Food Programme estimates that approximately one million of the 6.4 million people who will be enrolled in antiretroviral programmes in 2008 will need some kind of nutritional support. The cost of providing them with assistance is just $0.73 (Canadian) per patient per day, including all transport and programme costs.

For HIV patients, rations are typically only required for 6 months until they can get back on their feet. Poor nutrition heightens individual susceptibility to HIV-related infections while food insecurity makes it more likely that individuals adopt risky lifestyles that increases their vulnerability to being exposed to virus. If infections occur, integrated nutrition, food security and HIV/AIDS interventions can promote positive living and prolong the asymptomatic period of relative health. When AIDS develops, nutrition and food security become important partners in treatment, Mr. Jackson said.

Respect for rights

As HIV tests have become cheaper and more widely available, an increasing number of countries are supporting standalone HIV testing programmes that are coercive and discriminatory, fail to ensure confidentiality, and do not provide access to prevention information of treatment, the Human Rights Watch has said. Governments are failing to address the widespread stigma faced by those testing positive, and are increasingly adopting or strengthening laws criminalising HIV transmission. These laws are often arbitrarily applied and are ineffective at preventing HIV transmission, it has said.

It has drawn attention towards proposals in India to test all individuals wishing to obtain or retain a driver's licence in Punjab.

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