Clinician urges HIV positive residents to take treatment

Johannesburg – Residents with compromised immune systems are warned to be extra cautious amid the Covid-19 pandemic. 

  HIV clinician Dr Kay Mahomed, who runs an HIV clinic at Netcare Garden City Hospital, says HIV positive residents who keep on treatment, and whose viral loads are at undetectable levels, are likely to be at no greater risk of contracting Covid-19, compared to the rest of the population.

  Mahomed said HIV-positive patients who are not undergoing treatment, or who have stopped taking antiretrovirals during the lockdown, are likely to be at greater risk of infection.

  Recent reports indicated that thousands of people in Gauteng had failed to collect their medicine during the lockdown period.

Mahomed said they were also at risk of developing other HIV-associated conditions that include TB.

  “The days your immune system was like dead are not there anymore, and a couple of years when we started the testing programme, we started putting all patients on antiretroviral therapy. Those patients who went on treatment at that time were doing well now because their viral loads were undetectable and they had good CD4 counts,” she said.