Kaduna community eliminates mother to child transmission of HIV
Pampaida community also known as “UN Millennium village, Kaduna State is the first community in Nigeria to report no HIV transmission from mother to child in four consecutive years. WHO indicators were recently used by UNAIDS, Columbia University/Millenium Village Project and Local Health Authorities to validate elimination of mother to child transmission (eMTCT) in the […]
Pampaida community also known as “UN Millennium village, Kaduna State is the first community in Nigeria to report no HIV transmission from mother to child in four consecutive years.
WHO indicators were recently used by UNAIDS, Columbia University/Millenium Village Project and Local Health Authorities to validate elimination of mother to child transmission (eMTCT) in the Pampaida community.
The success of Pampaida with elimination of mother to child transmission of HIV is largely due to the use of ‘development-centred’ approach rather than a ‘project-based’ approach to address the need of the community. With a ‘development-centred’ approach, Pampaida was able to address structural problems which are critical and central to HIV control – poverty, education, gender empowerment. Access to health care was enhanced through girl child education, increased community awareness and male involvement in health decision making processes. Improved access to cash also improved access to health commodities including food.
Gender empowerment increased access of the girl child to school, reduced rate of early girl child marriage. Increased uptake of contraception increased child spacing, reduced maternal mortality and increased child survival.
There are still challenges and they include: inadequate domestic funding in the face of declining support from donors, inadequate capacity (human resource and infrastructure) to effectively provide prevention, treatment and care programmes and poor health seeking habit among the rural population, particularly Ante-Natal Care attendance and reluctance of pregnant women to deliver in health facilities.
Others include: Pockets of insecurity in some parts of the country which disrupts service delivery, commodity supply and overall coordination of interventions and programmes, and poor health care workers attitude to People Living with HIV, stigma and discrimination related to HIV and tuberculosis.
In order to ensure an AIDS free generation by 2030, Nigeria is committed to increase domestic funding to achieve a fully funded AIDS response, fully operationalize 90-90-90 strategy to eliminate progression to AIDS, premature death and HIV transmission, ensure comprehensive combination prevention for all populations, expand HIV Counseling and Testing (HCT) antiretroviral treatment (ART) and Prevention of Mother to Child Transmission (PMTCT) service points and pursue a policy of local manufacture of essential commodities (antiretroviral drugs, HIV test kits and condoms) to mention a few.