Reducing HIV/AIDs prevalence through mother to child transmission

Zeremo and his wife Iveren are part of the 13, 000 clients accessing HIV/AIDs services at the General Hospital, Katsina-Ala . They are a happy positive couple with a negative baby. According to Iveren, she enrolled for antenatal care at the hospital and diligently took her antiretroviral. She said some women pregnant women don’t like […]

Zeremo and his wife Iveren are part of the 13, 000 clients accessing HIV/AIDs services at the General Hospital, Katsina-Ala . They are a happy positive couple with a negative baby.
According to Iveren, she enrolled for antenatal care at the hospital and diligently took her antiretroviral. She said some women pregnant women don’t like coming to the hospital for treatment for fear of stigmatization.
 She called on women to attend ante-natal clinic when pregnant and when they discover that they are positive, they should not stop accessing the services so that they can have a HIV negative child.
Another client, Joy Yoyen said she and her husband were positive before marriage but because she was not aware of her status, they have a HIV positive son who is now nine years old and was also at the clinic to access treatment.
She added that the three children she had after him are all HIV negative because she was able to access Prevention of Mother -to- child Transmission of HIV (PMTCT) services at the hospital.
Yoyen said the HIV/AIDs clients appreciate the efforts of government through the National Agency for the Control of AIDs (NACA) which has been ensuring a steady supply of Anti-retrovirals for them adding that she and her husband are very healthy now unlike before when they were plagued with various ailments.
This reporter also observed a large number of positive couples with negative children at the health facility during an inspection tour of HIV treatment sites in Benue State.
The tour was organized by the National Agency for the Control of AIDs (NACA) and treatments centres visited include Gboko General Hospital, Katsina-Ala General  Hospital, Federal Medical Centre, Makurdi, and General Hospital, Oturkpo.
At the Federal Medical centre , Makurdi , another couple Felix and Esther Salem said while they were both positive before marriage, their child is negative.
Esther Salem said she was taking anti retroviral drugs during pregnancy and after delivery, her baby was given the requisite drugs adding that the child is one year six months old now and healthy.
She advised women to stop shying away from screening and treatment at hospitals saying that some of them are ashamed and afraid  to come to the HIV treatment clinic for fear that people will recognize  them as having HIV and as such are giving birth to positive children.
Mrs Salem also advised ladies to stop hiding their status from their partners. She said some women hide it until they get married and their husbands only discover when they are pregnant. She said this makes some men to send the HIV positive ladies away from their homes even in their pregnant state.
“I advise them to disclose their status to their husbands and sex partners and secondly to go to the hospital for treatment because now they can have negative children,” she said.
At the Gboko General Hospital , a pregnant woman who doesn’t want to be named said she attends the antenatal clinic and takes her drugs regularly in order to have a healthy negative baby.
According the National Agency for the Control of AIDS (NACA) 747,382  people  are on Antiretroviral Therapy (ART) as at the end of 2014. The NACA report also said  a large population of new HIV infections is also through mother to child transmission , and mother to child transmission rate was  estimated at 27.3%.
Women constitute 58% of the population of People Living with HIV (PLWHIV).
Benue State used to top the chart of HIV/Aids prevalence in the country but in recent times, it is witnessing a reduction in the prevalence rate. The state prioritized HIV prevention, and prevention of mother to child transmission as core area of intervention and response.
 As a result of awareness creation amongst the populace, there is improvement in safer sexual behaviours and more pregnant women are receiving ARVs for Prevention of Mother -to- child Transmission of HIV (PMTCT) in the health facilities thereby leading to increasing number of negative children from positive parents
According to the Executive Secretary Benue State AIDS Control Agency (BENSACA) Mrs Grace Ashi Wende from 1999 till date a lot has happened especially level and support and response through the use of drugs, antiretroviral therapy , and today the prevalence rate has dropped from 12.7 percent to 5.4 5 percent. “Three percent is not magic, and it is because we have put several strategies in place to make sure this problem becomes a thing of the past,” she said.
While thanking NACA and the state government for their support in taming the tide of HIV/AIDs, she  said Benue is recording success in the prevention of mother to child transmission, as it is one of the ways of reducing HIV and producing HIV free future generation.
The team also visited the Institute of Human Virology of Nigeria (IHVN) supported laboratory at the heath facility which was recently equipped with an Early Infant Diagnosis  machine.
Principal Investigator, HIV services, Federal Medical Centre, Makurdi  Dr. Jonah Abah, said in spite of some challenges , their programmes are positively impacting on the people.
He said as at 2015 the hospital had 194 exposed pregnant women who have delivered in the hospital and out of this only one child is positive with HIV.
He added that they have also had 36 women who came in labour and did not pass through the antenatal care and PMTCT programme and out of the 36 of them, two children were born saying “if they had passed through our programme the story may have been different .”
He said the laboratory is  well equipped and because of this many centres in Benue, Nasarawa, Cross River, and parts of Taraba  send specimens to the lab particularly for early infant and viral load diagnosis.
Consultant pediatrician at Federal Medical Centre, Makurdi, Dr Justina Akpan, said the health experts are doing their best in helping the women access prevention of mother to child transmission of HIV/AIDs.
There are also primary health care facilities in the state catering for PMTCT. According to Margaret Gbese, the focal person PMTC at primary health care centre in Wadata, Makurdi , they check,  test and counsel pregnant women. And  when positive they give them ARV and when they deliver they give the babies drugs at birth to six weeks and after six weeks give them a drug which they take to 18 months before doing the DBS test.
However in spite of these success stories , there are challenges that will seriously impeded reaching the 80 percent target of PMTCT services in the Benue State  according to a quarterly publication of BENSACA.
It reports that major factors militating against PMTC are poor intake of antenatal services and low attendance at delivery points among others. “Antenatal care uptake is weakened by payment of services by pregnant women while skilled birth attendance is adversely affected by the traditional system of home delivery.”
It also said while all PMTCT sites have capacity to collect DBS samples , it is only one centre in the state that can effectively process these samples however it is incapacitated by lack of reagents  and because of this test results are not disseminated early enough and backlogs are large.
The state agency recommended that there is need to create more demand for antenatal services in the state saying this should lead to increase access to PMTCT services especially if PMTCT is integrate into all and service outlets in the state both public and private
It also recommended that community awareness, involvement, participation and ownership of the programme should limit stigmatization and discrimination against HIV -positive women and increase support to participate in PMTCT.