HIV

The increased frequency and severity of extreme weather events, such as droughts, floods and heatwaves, have been documented in South Africa. Vulnerable populations and regions are affected differently by extreme weather.

The 2022 floods in KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa, caused over 400 deaths, damage to infrastructure, and disruption of services, including healthcare, displacing over 40,000 people. Extreme weather events like floods can result in acute interruption of HIV treatment and care and competing livelihood priorities, resulting in chronic disengagement from care and associated increases in morbidity, economic losses, and mortality.

Dr Kingsley Orievulu and Dr Saeideh Babashahi from Africa Health Research Institute and Brighton and Sussex Medical School will extend their previous work on the impact of droughts on HIV treatment to estimate the economic impact of floods on people with HIV and evaluate high-priority policy interventions using participatory methods and multi-criteria decision analysis.

Through their research, the team aims to understand the impact of the recent floods on healthcare utilisation, lives, and livelihoods amongst patients with HIV. They also aim to quantify economic productivity losses and healthcare costs associated with the floods and identify and create a priority list of sustainable and adaptive actions to reduce the health, economic and social impacts of floods on people living with HIV.