People already living with HIV/AIDS in emergencies

In general, people already infected with HIV are at greater risk of physically deteriorating during an emergency because:
• People living with HIV/AIDS are more prone to suffer from disease and death as a consequence of limited access to food, clean water, and good hygiene than are people with functioning immune systems.
• Caretakers may be killed or injured during an emergency leaving behind children already made vulnerable by infection with HIV/AIDS or loss of parents to AIDS.
• Health care systems break down (attacks on health centres, inability to provide supplies, flight of health care staff ), and populations have limited access to health facilities because roads are blocked or mined, and financial resources are even more limited than usual.

(Referance:
GUIDELINES for HIV/AIDS interventions in emergency settings
Inter-Agency Standing Committee Task Force on HIV/AIDS in Emergency Settings
www.humanitarianinfo.org/iasc)