Barbados adopts new guidelines for HIV treatment

New guidelines built based on experience at the country level

Barbados health authorities say they have developed for the first time, local guidelines aimed at providing comprehensive clinical guidance for physicians and other health care providers in the prevention and treatment of HIV.

In the past, physicians and health care providers relied on regional and international guidance for the clinical management of HIV.

The new guidelines, while based on guidance from the World Health Organization (WHO), is built on experience at the country level.

Its focus is the management of HIV in children, adolescents and adults; management of common opportunistic infections; management of HIV infection in pregnant women; and management of HIV post-exposure prophylaxis.

Health Minister John Boyce said that studies conducted by the Ministry of Health and The University of the West Indies, revealed that there had been dramatic declines in HIV-related deaths in Barbados, as well as declining rates of new cases.

He said this was largely due to antiretroviral therapy (ART), introduced In 2002.