50% HIV Patients Avoid Treatment
Dr Balak called for urgent decentralisation of testing services and better resource management.
Tuesday 27 May 2025 | 23:50
Sexual Reproductive Hub medical officer in charge Dr Darshika Balak in Suva on May 24, 2025. Photo: Fiji Medical Association
Nearly 50 per-cent of people diagnosed with HIV in Fiji are failing to return for follow-up treatment and care, raising urgent concerns about the country’s ability to control the outbreak.
Dr Darshika Balak, medical officer in charge at the Sexual Reproductive Hub in Suva, revealed the staggering figure during a recent health briefing, citing major gaps in data, treatment access, and coordination as key drivers of the crisis.
“We have almost 50 per cent of our patients that have deemed to have been lost to follow-up,” Dr Balak said.
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“So there are a good number of these patients who were diagnosed but they do not know of their status, there is a good number of people living with HIV who has never been tested and they are continuously transmitting, and then there are people who have been diagnosed and just do not return for care and treatment.”
She described the national response as fragmented and out of sync with the scale and nature of the current outbreak, particularly among high-risk groups such as injectable drug users.
“We have very poor data. We do not have data in the country to actually say what the situation is and how we are going to respond to it,” Dr Balak said.
“Whatever interventions we are doing is not aligned to the current outbreak.”
In addition to HIV, Dr Balak warned of simultaneous outbreaks of hepatitis B, hepatitis C, and persistent rates of sexually transmitted infections (STIs), which she said have long been ignored.
“We are having an outbreak in hepatitis B, hepatitis C, and STI has always been a problem in the country which has gone under the carpet and no one really talks about it.”
She said a slow rollout of STI testing and recurring shortages of antiretroviral therapy (ART) and testing kits were compounding the crisis.
Dr Balak called for urgent decentralisation of testing services and better resource management.
“We really need to decentralise our testing services which also include STI testing as well,” she said.
“For treatments – we have been facing stock-outs over and over again. Not just for antiretroviral therapy (ART) but also testing kits as well.”
Calling for a fundamental overhaul of the country’s HIV response, Dr Balak stressed the need for stronger leadership and more effective coordination.
“We need a greater leadership to drive our response forward. There is a lack of coordination and governance.”
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