Health Ministry Permanent Secretary Dr Jemesa Tudravu (left), FMA president Dr Alipate Vakamocea

Startling revelations by the Fiji Medical Association that so far this year HIV (human immunodeficiency virus) cases in the country have surpassed 1000 and could be approaching 1500 cases.

FMA president Dr Alipate Vakamocea says his numbers are based on data from doctors on the ground.

He says this is a huge concern for Fiji because it is putting a huge strain on primary health care services as well.

Dr Vakamocea says that most of the increase can be attributed to increased intravenous (IV) drug use among people.

“It’s much higher. It’s much higher. Remember, these are people who are only coming to get tested. We don’t currently have any programs where we go into the community and do testing. We don’t have that. We probably don’t have that ability as Ministry of Health”.

Dr Vakamocea says by having an epidemic-level response to the current HIV crisis, the ministry can mobilize targeted intervention to a cluster that requires immediate and necessary life-saving interventions such as testing and treatment.

“And unless we address the bigger issue, this is going to continue to happen for the next you know couple of months, even years. So that’s why we want to nip this in the bud right now”

Health Ministry Permanent Secretary Dr Jemesa Tudravu says the FMA data “is likely the case” as there are many individuals who may have the virus but have not been tested.

“The numbers that have been presented by the FMA are exactly what we’ve been talking about. Every time we’ve presented data on HIV, we’ve said, we’ve always said that this is likely the tip of the iceberg, that there are others who are not presenting, who may not have symptoms. The numbers that we’re presenting are those that have symptoms and have presented to our health facilities.”

The Health PS says they are also focusing on prevention strategies to bring the HIV cases under control.

The Health Ministry had earlier reported that for the first six months of this year, there were 552 new HIV cases which marked a 241 percent when compared to previous years.