2023-07-27 22:00:07
The Association for the Fight against AIDS (ALCS) is organising, on Friday July 28 and Saturday July 29, open screening and awareness days on the occasion of World Hepatitis Day.
Screening will be carried out by ALCS community health workers who will direct people who test positive for HCV to the hospital care centers where confirmation tests for the infection as well as treatment with direct-acting antivirals (DAAs) ) are free. It should be noted that this operation will take place in the 23 anonymous and free screening centers (CIDAG), in areas far from urban centers as well as in the places most frequented by people vulnerable to infection with this virus.
The ALCS believes that without the involvement of community associations, the eradication of HCV by 2030 is compromised. The association’s community approach allows it, on its own, to achieve nearly 60% of the national objectives in terms of HIV prevention; virus which, like HCV, feeds on social inequalities. But the ACLS also calls on the public authorities to involve community associations in the implementation, monitoring and evaluation of the strategic plan for the fight against hepatitis aimed at ending hepatitis C by 2030.
Although the ALCS carried out 12,375 HCV screening tests among the populations most vulnerable to infection during the last quarter of 2022, it only carried out 3,757 during the first half of 2023. “These figures, far below the objectives fixed by the national strategic plan for the fight against hepatitis, are explained by the late receipt and at irregular intervals of the rapid diagnostic orientation tests (TROD) provided by the Ministry of Health and Social Protection”, indicates the association.
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