WIDNet
Preparing Community in the Management of Antiretroviral Therapy (ART)
Preparing Community in the Management of Antiretroviral Therapy (ART)
The areas of focus for SWAAZ are Lusaka, Eastern and Southern provinces where it already has existing home based care programmes. After successful implementation in these areas, the programme shall then be transferred to other areas not yet catered for. In the three provinces, SWAAZ is to reach 240 community based volunteers who in turn, are going to reach other volunteers at community level. To this effect, twenty eight trainers of trainers from the three provinces have already been trained and are implementing this project in their respective areas. • To supplement government’s effort in scaling up the uptake of antiretroviral drugs |
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Twenty years of the HIV/AIDS pandemic has really devastated many sectors of our society, the economy, our lives and not leaving out the traditional extended family system that existed from time in memorial. The burden of taking care of the sick is so much on families especially the elderly women who neither have the capacity nor the means of providing nutrition to those they are taking care of because of poverty. Apart from that, knowledge of HIV/AIDS, disease progression and treatment is not very wide for most primary care givers in house holds where there are patients. 
The various players in the field of HIV/AIDS have done so much on sensitization and now the emphasis is on treatment and management of antiretroviral therapy (ART).Society for Women and Aids in Zambia (SWAAZ) has embarked on a mission to empower its membership with the necessary tools in the management of the disease. The project, which is targeting community based volunteers directly involved in the provision of home based care services, is an initiative of safaids in partnership with the network of Zambian people living positively (NZP+) and the Central Board of Health (CBOH).