Abstract #303  -  The impact of the food and financial crisis on adherence to antiretroviral treatment and on treatment success among HIV/AIDS patients in Mozambique.
Authors:   Presenting Author:   Dr Damien de Walque - The World Bank
Additional Authors:  Dr Damien de Walque, Dr Harounan Kazianga, Dr Mead Over,
Aim: Adherence to treatment is a key determinant of treatment success and is crucial in avoiding the development of resistances. Antiretroviral therapies need to be taken at least once a day and need to be taken after a meal. Good nutrition is therefore an essential element in ensuring adherence and treatment success among HIV/AIDS patients. The food and financial crisis constitute a major risk by reducing access to food for HIV patients who generally are already among the most vulnerable groups in the communities. In addition, even if the antiretroviral medicines are generally subsidized, access to treatment is costly in terms of travel and opportunity costs for patients and their households.
Method / Issue: We have implemented longitudinal household surveys of HIV/AIDS patients in Mozambique. We have followed patients before (for example, while they are on the waiting list) and after they have received anti- retroviral treatment and we have included in our surveys a group of control households, in which there is no identified HIV/AIDS patients, to control for general trends in socio-economic circumstances. We have collected data in 2007 and we are finishing the data collection for the 2009 survey. We will therefore have information before (2007) and during the food and financial crisis (2009). We are following over 2 years 667 household including HIV/AIDS patients and 333 control households. We developed survey instruments aimed at giving us a more complete measurement of consumption and food consumption, time use, labor force participation and earnings of not only the patient, but of all members of the household. The surveys are gathering information on adherence to treatment, consumption, including food consumption, income, health of adults and children, including anthropometric measurements, and quality of life. In addition, we collect biomedical records for HIV+ patients allowing an objective measure of the health status and the treatment status of the patients.
Results / Comments: We will produce an analysis of the impact of the food and financial crisis on treatment adherence, the treatment outcomes, the health status and the economic welfare of HIV/AIDS patients and their families in Mozambique using two longitudinal surveys collected among that population in 2007 and 2009, i.e. before and during the crisis. We are currently cleaning the data sets for the 2009 survey and will have the results in time for the conference in September.
Discussion: If the study finds that the food and financial crisis threatens the sustainability of the treatment programs, specific interventions will need to be implemented to provide support, potentially including nutritional support, to HIV/AIDS patients.
Go Back