Ageing HIV patients add to overloaded health system
South Africa is facing an unexpected healthcare crisis as a growing population of HIV-positive individuals reaches middle age and beyond. Experts warn that these patients face accelerated aging and increased risks of chronic conditions like diabetes and cardiovascular disease, placing significant strain on the medical system.
Why it matters
This highlights a critical shift in global health policy, moving from a focus on HIV survival to managing the long-term, complex comorbidities of an aging HIV-positive population.
A large, steadily growing HIV population in this country is living well into middle age and beyond, thanks to freely available treatment, but the challenges this presents were never predicted nor were they taken into consideration two decades ago, reports Business Day .
When Sibongile Tshabalala was diagnosed with HIV in 2000, then-President Thabo Mbeki’s Aids denialism was at its peak and activists were locked in battle with his administration over its refusal to provide life-saving treatment.
The focus was on survival. No one was thinking about what it might mean to grow old with HIV, says Tshabalala, now the chair of the Treatment Action Campaign (TAC).
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