Is preventing HIV-infected babies achievable ?

The only reason she is in the hospital is because she is HIV positive and has heard from her neighbour and friend that a treatment could prevent her baby from being born with her condition.She patiently waited for four hours because of her fears for her unborn baby.She has had two others, according to her, […]

The only reason she is in the hospital is because she is HIV positive and has heard from her neighbour and friend that a treatment could prevent her baby from being born with her condition.
She patiently waited for four hours because of her fears for her unborn baby.
She has had two others, according to her, who were lucky because she was negative then, but a change of her fortunes have left her with this condition after a brief illness.
Mina is sure her husband was responsible but was not willing to say.
Many women in Nigeria still prefer to give birth at home with assistance from traditional birth attendants than have to suffer the long waits in hospitals, rude attitude of the nurses or hidden charges for hospital care.
Apart from dealing with the increasing rate of maternal deaths in Nigeria, which has been tagged at 576 per 100,000, the country is known to have the highest number of HIV/AIDS babies born with 60,000 new HIV infection annually.
In June 2011, World leaders including Nigeria’s President Goodluck Ebele Jonathan launched the “Global Plan towards the Elimination of New HIV Infections among Children by 2015 and Keeping their Mothers Alive”.
This plan is aimed at reducing by 90% the number of new infections among children and to reduce AIDS-related maternal deaths by 50%.
The 2013 UNAIDS progress report on the Global Plan shows that as at the end of 2012, Nigeria accounted for 30% of new infections in the 21 priority countries in sub-Saharan Africa.
The Director General of the National Agency for the Control of AIDS (NACA), Professor John Idoko, noted that though services could be found in most facilities to achieve this aim, the greatest challenge is getting these women to deliver in health facilities where they have access to these interventions.
He reasoned that achieving the Elimination of Mother to Child Transmission (eMTCT) is inextricably linked with and directly contributes to the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), especially MDG 3 (gender equality), MDG 4 (reduce child mortality), MDG 5 (improve maternal health) and MDG 6 (combat HIV/AIDS). This positions eMTCT as an important part of the maternal and child health and the overall development agenda.
Meanwhile, the federal government, using the SURE-P programme, introduced the conditional cash transfer in PHC to motivate women to come for antenatal care when pregnant.
In order to achieve this, the agency is said to be working closely with the National Primary Health Care Development Agency (NPHCDA), whose duty is to regulate and formulate policies that govern primary health centres around the country.
Executive Director of NPHCDA, Dr Mohammed Ado, has said the first line of contact between a patient and any health care facility is the primary health care centres and so all health agencies are collaborating to integrate services at the PHC, and make it a one stop shop facility to reduce the burden of tiresome referrals and charges.
According to him, if a woman walks into a facility, she should be able to get all the tests there, be it malaria, HIV/AIDS and any other required care she needs.
Professor John Idoko, speaking on the issues, said that intensified efforts to rapidly scale-up Prevention of Mother to Child Transmission (PMTCT) services, which started in early 2012 is required.
“As you know, the launch of President’s Comprehensive Response Plan for HIV/AIDS (PCRP) 2013 demonstrates Nigeria’s commitment. The PCRP aims to accelerate the implementation of key interventions against HIV, including PMTCT.
“The number of HIV positive pregnant women who received treatment to prevent MTCT increased from 33, 891 in 2010 to 57,871 in 2013. This represents a 30% coverage of the national need,” he said.
He however noted that a lot more needs to be done though a lot of progress has been made. “To achieve eMTCT, there is need to enhance political commitment at all levels of government.”
“This high level process undertaken by the President aims at political and social mobilization to end the AIDS epidemic among children. It will start with the launching of a National Action Plan to end Mother to Child Transformation of HIV in Nigeria 2015-2016, and progress into a vigorous one week long nationwide campaign of HIV Counselling and Testing (HCT) for pregnant women,” he said.
But most fear that this laudable initiative by President Goodluck Jonathan is being frustrated at some quarters, as recently the president of the Network of People living with HIV/AIDS said that monies have not been released to fund this project.
Edward Ogenyi noted that with most of the donor agencies reducing their funding, his members are likely to bear the burden of this action since most HIV/AIDS interventions are funded by donor agencies.
“Go across states, our members are dying in dozens, most of our women especially the pregnant ones are not getting the interventions, those on drugs cannot get their refill and other support items, something urgently has to be done.”
These concerns are also shared by some civil societies who believe that enough is not done to fund the HIV/AIDS project, especially across states.
But the Director General of NACA notes that some funds have been released which will be used to start some interventions in two states to cover for the services that the donor agencies have withdrawn from.
“We are doing everything in our powers to ensure that these funds are adequately used judiciously and transparently, our aim is to make sure that all those on drugs get their drugs, and also increase the number of persons on drugs.
“But above all we want to make sure that Nigeria exits the list of countries with the highest numbers of HIV/AIDS born babies, no baby should be born HIV/AIDS positive, this can be done and it is achievable,” he added.