Spatial distribution and challenges in accessing HIV drugs centers in Oyo, Nigeria

There is no complete cure for HIV infection, but highly active antiretroviral therapy (HAART) has been applied to reduce the morbidity and mortality of HIV worldwide. Still, the ease of accessing these medications poses a serious concern. This work was carried out to understand the effectiveness and efficiency of area coverage of HIV drug centers. Google Earth Pro was employed to capture imagery of the study area and GPS instrumentation was used to pick the coordinates of the HCT and HIV Drugs centres within the study area. A questionnaire was then used to collect the attribute information of the facilities that exist. Subsequently, ArcGIS software was applied to import imagery to bring out the spatial entities of the area. Herein, GIS operations like network analysis, nearest neighborhood and Query were accessed. Average Nearest Neighbor Index (Rn) for HIV Drugs centres within Oyo metropolis was then calculated based on average straight line distance from each facility to its nearest neighboring facility. Herein, the Rn was 28.8. The Rn value indicates that spatial pattern of HIV Drugs centres in Oyo metropolis are dispersed. The Z-score (74.813624) and P-value (0.00000) reveals that the pattern of HIV Drugs centres in Oyo metropolis also exhibits significant dispersion. This means that the pattern of HIV Drugs centre location in the study area was significantly different from a random pattern. Network operation was then applied to determine best route from one HCT centre to HIV Drugs centre and to find if alternative routes were possible. The study shows that the spatial distribution of HIV Drugs centres is uneven - with 35 existing HCT (HIV Counselling and Testing) centres in 3 local governments, as well as 2 HIV Drugs centres. The service area calculation result shows other areas are in need of HIV Drugs.