Message from Executive Director

Year 2020 was an enormous lesson for the entire team of Health Initiatives Association due to the COVID‐19 pandemics. The team learnt how to improvise and how to adapt to frequent changes of the situation and plans. The common effort was to stand in the light of our mission and to serve even in this difficult time to those who are most in need. Some of our preventive services among children and adolescents went to the background because of the lockdown and social distancing rules. However, the cooperation between the clinical department and social work department improved tremendously due to the unfavourable COVID‐19 era. Our social workers delivered the drugs to the patients who were not able to commute to the clinic because of the public transport restrictions. And clinical team worked together with social workers on delivering the service to the bedridden clients. This teamwork was visible on low number of lost to follow up clients and in good retention rates of HIV clients throughout the pandemics.

The influence of the pandemics was remarkable, but did not freeze our plans for developments and dynamic progress. The HIV program adopted the new HIV/ART guidelines 2020, optimisation of the old‐ fashioned regimens was escalated towards the end of the year. Despite the high proportion of children and adolescents in care, HIA reached finally our set target of 90% of viral load suppression among HIV clients on December 2020. Social program has increased the number of beneficiaries for the education support by more than 300 in one single year. The administration department worked hard to keep the pace with the strategic plan and the construction of the maternity wing started in 2020 as well. The work of HIA team was blessed throughout 2020 and we pray that we can continue to offer good quality services and kind humane attitude to this community in the next coming years.Click here to read more...........