New GPC Inc has partnered with Midway Specialty Care Centre to host an event aimed at highlighting emerging research with regards to HIV medicine, care and treatment.
The Continuing Medical Education (CME) session was hosted at the Pegasus Corporate Suites on Tuesday evening.
Presentations were made by Dr Moti Ramgopal and Dr Joel Gallant on HIV and long-term treatment success.
The forum aligns with the government’s established agenda to continue to provide adequate services to persons living with the virus.
The event was also addressed by Health Minister Dr. Frank Anthony who lauded the renowned physicians for their work in the medical field, noting that research such as theirs is why Guyana was able to advance its HIV programme.
According to Dr Anthony, Guyana has made significant progress towards eliminating HIV as a public health concern.
“It has been a long period and I think when we look back, we can see where we came from and the transformation that would have happened in HIV medicine and care. We would like to eliminate HIV as a public health concern by 2030 and we’re following the board trajectory of the WHO and UN aids and others,” Dr Anthony said.
Dr Anthony added that while his ministry was able to implement a robust HIV programme, efforts are still ongoing to get more people to access care and treatment.
“We’re working on elimination of mother to child transmission hopefully by next year we can achieve that. We have introduced PREP and not just for couples but to make sure that persons who are at risk can have access to it. We have introduced self-testing, so there are a whole host of changes that would have happened with our programme,” the health minister added.
Among some of the issues raised during the discussion is the need to have fair and barrier free access to HIV therapy, freedom from stigma and discrimination and clinical monitoring systems. (Trichell Sobers)
