A patient displays HIV/AIDS drugs | Credit | MSF

People living with HIV in South Sudan are receiving insufficient care and treatment despite donor investment, the UN development agency said, warning that health centers are struggling to provide essential aspects of treatment and patient management.

Addressing the launch of upcoming World Aids Day in Juba, UNDP Project Coordinator Advisor Russell Armstrong believes that care for individuals living with the virus, is as crucial as the antenatal services provided to pregnant women.

According to him, despite sufficient investments in HIV services, gaps remain when visiting facilities on the ground.

He called for renewed efforts on community engagement and activism to dispel stigma and sustain the quality of HIV services provided.

“We still struggle in a very serious way to provide a basic quality of care to people living with HIV through these health centers across the country,” he said.

“You know, the basics of basic reporting and quality of care, is that they could just put a table outside of the entrance of the health center with the drugs and people’s names on it and said, come and collect the drugs whenever it’s convenient for you.”

“That was really the extent of what they were doing, basically processing refills and then indicating, you know, when someone had collected them. In other facility, there are no routine viral load or any requests for early infant diagnosis.”

In 2022, South Sudan’s Health Minister Yolanda Awel announced that an estimated 173,000 people were living with HIV in South Sudan – an increase in new HIV/AIDS infections compared to 2021.

The Chairperson of South Sudan HIV/AIDS Commission said in 2021, the country had achieved little in suppressing HIV transmission, although she stated that public knowledge of the virus has improved, and the level of stigma has reduced.

There is no cure for HIV infection, but with effective prevention, diagnosis and treatment, it has become a manageable chronic health condition, enabling people living with HIV to lead long and healthy lives.

“I believe that access to monitoring tools is a human right. The same way that if you think of pregnant women and all the interventions that they require for healthy delivery, these are human rights.”

UNAIDS Country Director, Mahboob Rahman, said the agency is determined to work with the South Sudan government and partners to advance the HIV response.

“UNAIDS will continue to work in hand with the government and our development partners to ensure that the gains in HIV response in are sustained and advocate for the rights-based approaches in the HIV response in the Country.”

“We have been continuously doing this with the great partnership with the development partners as well as our strong roots working with the communities.”

On his part, the Executive Director of South Sudan Network of people leaving with HIV, Lole Leile Lole highlights the challenges related to awareness and information about HIV/AIDS in South Sudan.

Lole stressed the need for individual responsibility in prevention and encourage people to know their HIV status to utilize available services.

“South Sudan has a lot of challenges in areas of awareness and information in some areas that we cannot assess them. So today is the launching of World Aid Day that we all have to make sure we prevent ourselves for the HIV/AID.”

“We need to clear our status so that we’ll be able to assess the services. And the directors of HIV/AID around the state must take this message to the state that we are having still a fight for HIV/AID.”

Central Equatoria State, HIV/AIDS Commission Hon. Marino Michael stressed the importance of a united strategy to tackle the HIV epidemic, urging collaboration among communities, academia, private sectors, law enforcement, and faith-based organizations.

“These are all we need to come together so that at least we can fight this epidemic. We must take collective action today, not tomorrow, to continue to improve service delivery to reach to the communities must an impact by HIV-promoted sense of urgency and accountability, mobilizing possible domestic insurers.”