HOPE Cape Town – New Projects
2011 is a year of changes and innovations for HOPE Cape Town, and against this background we are pleased to introduce three new projects to you that will take HOPE Cape Town back to its roots.
Firstly, we will take up third line drug sponsorships for children that have failed HAART on the first and second treatment regimen provided by the South African government. This will happen on an ad hoc basis and only after careful examination of each case according to predefined criteria. Attending physicians have to present the patient for whom they require sponsorship and the approval is subject to a decision made by the HOPE Cape Town board.
Secondly, HOPE Cape Town is now facilitating HIV viral resistance testing for paediatric HIV patients who are no longer responding to conventional HAART. These tests are crucial to be able to direct patients’ further treatment in the right direction, considering that the number of patients resistant to standard ARVs available in the public sector are on the increase.
Thirdly, we are starting to focus increasingly on the parents of our HIV positive patients on the Ithemba Children’s ward for infectious diseases at Tygerberg Hospital. Even though they are often very ill themselves, they are not automatically co-treated once their children have been admitted. As a result, many children are not cared for in a proper way after being discharged due to one or both parents being sick or even dying. Thanks to the company Alere Healthcare who have generously loaned a novel mobile CD4 testing unit to HOPE Cape Town, we will now be able to perform instant CD4 counts for Ithemba parents. All it takes is a finger prick and after 20 minutes the results are there. Depending on the result of the rapid test, the patient can then be referred for further testing and treatment. We hope to lead the way to a comprehensive treatment of the whole family by this holistic approach.