When ARVs Are Gone: Providing Mental Health Support for People Living with HIV

By Allison Kozicharow; Edited by Elizabeth Fine

WiRED International just launched an urgent module titled When ARVs Are Gone: Providing Mental Health Support for People Living with HIV. 

WiRED’s original team of trained community health workers (CHWs) live and operate in Kisumu, Kenya. HIV/AIDS is endemic there. Before the Trump Administration eliminated USAID, that agency supplied life-saving drugs and vaccines for not only HIV/AIDS but many other prevalent diseases such as cholera and malaria.

Today the medical supply shelves are empty. There are no antiretrovirals (ARVs) to treat HIV/AIDS. There are no vaccines for many other infectious diseases. Even supplies of simple over-the-counter (OTC) medications are strained.

When ARVs Are Gone

How are CHWs to help people with HIV or people living with AIDS without ARVs?

Although nothing can keep HIV/AIDS cases from escalating, WiRED is providing CHWs with new training tools to address the health crises faced by people living with HIV/AIDS and with no medication access.

The training is divided into three modules under the banner of “When ARVs are Gone”:

1. HIV/AIDS Symptoms Management (released on March 8 — see story here)
2. Providing Mental Health Support for People Living with HIV (available now!)
3. Palliative Care for HIV/AIDS sufferers (coming soon!)

Each module packages evidence-based and peer-reviewed information not readily available elsewhere. All CHWs — trained by WiRED or by other organizations — are invited to access the free module online or by way of a phone app (see Distribution sidebar for directions).

The New Module: When ARVs Are Gone: Providing Mental Health Support for People Living with HIV

When ARVs Are Gone: Providing Mental Health Support for People Living with HIV module launched today will teach CHWs to address the mental and emotional needs of people living with HIV (PLHIV). After completing the module training, CHWs will be able to:

• State the links between a diagnosis of HIV and mental health issues.
• Identify responses for PLHIV who have no access to ARVs.
• List coping strategies for PLHIV.
• Identify counseling and education strategies they can use. 

Mental health has long been a component of WiRED CHWs’ work in Kisumu. Whether one-on -one or in group sessions, CHWs discuss mental health openly among their people. Many people feel uncomfortable and stigmatized by admitting that they are HIV+ or agreeing to be tested, and our CHWs report a lot of progress in what they call “sensitizing” their community. CHWs teach HIV/AIDS prevention and protection, how to avoid HIV transmission to partners and how to avoid mother to child transmission.

Conclusion

Without medication, Africa, which carries the highest global burden of HIV/AIDS, is already facing a crisis that will affect millions of people there and globally — a sobering prospect, and a needless one. ARVs all but halted symptoms of the disease and helped prevent its spread. ARVs are now gone.

According to a statement by World Health Organization Director-General Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus:

Disruptions to HIV programmes could undo 20 years of progress, leading to more than 10 million additional cases of HIV and 3 million HIV-related deaths — more than triple the number of deaths last year.

When the three-part series of When ARVs Are Gone modules are completed, WiRED hopes that this CHW training will provide some solace and the best care possible for people in underserved countries during this challenging and cruel time.