Guyana’s first comprehensive Sexually Transmitted Infections (STI) Strategic Plan is now a reality and the Ministry of Health is developing a two-year work schedule that will focus on the priority areas.
The plan, which will place more focus on diseases that have been overshadowed by HIV, was in the making since last year and is now set to be implemented by 2020. It is expected to assist health officials in addressing STIs in the same way HIV has been addressed.
Yesterday, the ministry held a workshop at the Grand Coastal Inn, by the end of which key stakeholders would have assisted in identifying the priority area to focus on first.
According to Head of the National AIDS Programme Secretariat (NAPS) Dr Shanti Singh, HIV is just one of many STIs, which are significant and have life-threatening consequences.
It is what stakeholders learnt from the HIV programme that triggered the STI strategic plan. Singh said the plan, along with its monitoring and evaluation, will be the road map to organizing a response to the other STIs, similar to the HIV response.
“So it’s really bringing all the other sexually transmitted infections that traditionally a lot of persons would go over the counter and just buy a red and black capsule [for treatment]; it is really bringing the focus on some of those things that needs to be streamlined,” she added.
Dr Singh said the streamlining would include looking at how the STIs are managed and also how they progress; contact tracing; and partner notification.
The plan also will bring together all of the ministry’s efforts in the area and coordinate one standard of care across the health sector and the ministry will seek to work closely with the private sector and the non-governmental organisations.
The strategy has identified five priority areas: the strengthening of STI programme management and coordination; promoting healthy sexual behaviours to reduce the transmission of STIs; expanding access to STI prevention, care and treatment in the health sector; increasing access to medicines, vaccines, diagnostics and laboratory support; and improving the availability of strategic information.
At a workshop last year, which had looked at the draft of the plan, it was stated that it was in recognition of the serious health, social, emotional and economic consequences of STIs that a strategic plan was developed by the Ministry of Health. The ministry, through NAPS, is committed to providing national leadership in collaboration with local, regional, national and international partners to develop the plan to manage and prevent STIs in Guyana.
The main goal is to “reduce the transmission and morbidity and mortality caused by STIs and to minimise the personal and social impact of the infections.”
A 2004 study had found that awareness of STIs among the most at-risk populations was generally high, with rates of “self-reported leak and genital sores/boils” noted among female sex workers, men who have sex with men (MSM) and in school youth, with the lowest rates seen for the military and police. However, according to the draft plan, there was no baseline information on STI knowledge and behaviour in the general population and very limited data is available on the prevalence of specific STIs in either the general population or in higher risk groups, such as female sex workers and MSM.
