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Source: elsalvador.com

The associations that fight for the rights of people living with HIV, report that El Salvador has gone through set backs in the implementation of policies that benefit the population and they state that there is discrimination in the environment.

By Roberto Alas

Several factors considered as negative in the fight against HIV make the country back on its policies to counter the virus, denounced the associations that fight for the health rights of people with HIV.

According to Odir Miranda, representative of the Asociación Atlacatl, the delay happens when people living with HIV have less tools to exercise their right to health, when the procuremenet of medications is at risk and because ¨there are no commitments at the highest level (of the government) that grant the importance that the topic deserves¨.

For Miranda, who lives with the virus, one of the problems encountered by 580 people living with the virus and currently under treatment, is that they can not have a job because some companies are requesting the test to know about their health condition.

In the area of personal development, there is the not to be hired by some companies because of the diagnostic. Some companies request the test in a verbal way to avoid evidence of discrimination to HIV positive people“, he said.

Under these condictions, many people living with HIV, start a tough battle because they have to face silence and it is a measure that usually almost all of them take because of the fear of social rejection.

He explained that in the education area, some universities are requesting the HIV test to accept their future students in some careers.

For the associations that make up the Alliance on Sustainability for the Response to HIV, the situation becomes more sensitive, when once they know their diagnostic, they do not receive the necessary guidance and the information for treatment.

Another set back in the country according to Miranda, took place with the approval by the Legislative Assembly on December 14, 2016, of the Law for Prevention and Control of Infection Caused by the Human Immunodeficiency Virus, which violates their right to confidentiality, he said.

The regulation states in the chapter ¨Duty to Report¨, in article 15, third entry, that ¨any person that has been informed about his/her serological condition must report that situation to his/her steady or eventual partner.

Miranda says that by violating the right to confidentiality of people living with the virus, their right to confidentiality is violated, because society will penalize and discriminate them.

The wording in that chapter, according to him, is that ¨anyone can accuse a person claiming that he/she was infected and there is no way to prove if it was that person or somebody else.¨

There has also been a step backwards in the fulfillment of international commitments that El Salvador has subscribed. The Alliance on Sustainability for the Response to HIV claims that this year the country will no longer receive funding from the World Bank (WB) for the procurement of antiretroviral medication.

El Salvador would gradually assume the funding that it used to receive from the international financial organization, said Miranda.

¨Unfortunately there has been no commitment to assume that expense or funding that it used to receive from the World Bank.¨

Lack of Budget

The reduction in the budget allocated for the purchase of medicines is also considered as a set back in the fight against HIV.

According to the organizations that make up the Alliance, the country is reducing the amounts to purchase antiretroviral medication rather than increasing them.

According to figures from the organizations, last year three million 455 thousand 392 dollars were allocated. This year the budget amounts to two million 500 thousand dollars.

The director of the Asociación Atlacatl understands that with the budget reduction for the purchase of antiretroviral medication, people living with HIV are exposed to death, because the virus reproduces and causes the body´s defenses to fall.

“So chaotic can be the situation if people do not receive treatment; with this shortage, if there is not an immediate solution, the problem will be the resistance that we will have (of the virus) for not having the medication¨said Miranda.

The above mentioned means that there could be more hospitalizations because people living with HIV would need second and third line medication, that is, more complex and expensive medication. To overcome the problem, which seems very difficult, the Ministry of Health must take actions to guarantee their right to health.