Permanent Secretary for Health, Doctor James Fong

The Ministry of Health has stabilized its contraceptive supply chain in terms of therapeutic drugs.

Permanent Secretary for Health, Doctor James Fong says this is in response to the recent spike in HIV cases.

The Ministry last year recorded 151 cases with 25 HIV-related deaths, including one paediatric death.

The Permanent Secretary says the statistics are concerning and they are looking at replacing programs to mitigate the increase.

“We are providing more support to the positive people to ensure that they are able to maintain safe behaviour and also providing laboratory monitoring of viral loads to ensure that the treatment is working in keeping them safe. We had a spike in HIV/AIDS and a lot of it had to do with the lack of proportional work that was done during that time.”

Dr. Fong says the ministry is focusing on the preventative side to help combat the disease.

He adds the treatment is available free of the cost locally, which can be accessed through the health ministry.