At the heart of the VIHeillir project

Last April, RFI journalist Igor Strauss travelled to Yaoundé and Bafia to conduct interviews with healthcare workers, community associations, institutions and patients. He was able to gather their feedback and views on the impact and effectiveness of the VIHeillir project.

VIHeillir is an innovative initiative that aims to help people living with HIV in Cameroon and Senegal. The interest of this project is to support patients to improve their well-being by receiving holistic treatment for their health problems by taking into account HIV-related comorbidities, as well as the social, psychosocial and economic factors that affect their quality of life. This project provides people living with HIV with tools and knowledge for better overall management of their condition.

In an interview given to Quotidien on November 20, 2021, Professor Coumé, a geriatrician in Senegal, indicates that ” is currently one of the greatest challenges of this 21st
^century . By 2050, we will see a doubling of the population of elderly people, this number will increase from 11 to 22%, that is to say from 650 million to 2 billion. Senegal will not escape this aging phenomenon: the growth rate of the elderly population is higher than the rate of the general population. The growth rate of elderly people is 3.5 while that of the general population is 2.5 “, which recalls the importance of the VIHeillir project to face the demographic and epidemiological transition that the country is experiencing.

Aging well with HIV in Cameroon and Senegal

The VIHeillir Ensemble project is a multi-country project led by the Bouisson Bertrand Institute . Its objective is to improve the health of people living with HIV (PLHIV) over 50 years of age in Cameroon and Senegal by integrating the management of the five priority comorbidities during routine visits, adapting proven strategies for HIV care and using existing mechanisms between the clinic and the community as much as possible.

The five comorbidities addressed by the project are diabetes, high blood pressure, precancerous cervical lesions in women and hepatitis B and C.

The targeted impact is the reduction of mortality and improvement of the quality of life of PLHIV over 50 years old. The beneficiaries of this project are PLHIV over 50 years old who consult in the care services identified for the implementation of the project, the healthcare staff (medical and paramedical) and the community actors (identified associations).

The project is implemented:

• in Cameroon, at the Yaoundé military hospital and the Bafia district hospital;
• in Senegal, at the Regional Center for Research and Training in Clinical Care in Fann (CRCF), at the Outpatient Treatment Center (CTA) of the Fann University Hospital and at the HIV Care Service of the Armed Forces AIDS program at the Ouakam Military Hospital (HMO).