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Medics challenged on mother-to-child HIV infections
2008-03-18 09:38:12
By Patrick Kisembo
First Lady Mama Salma Kikwete has challenged medical practitioners and the community at large to work together to prevent mother-to-child HIV infections.
Addressing participants to a three-day national Paediatric HIV and Aids Conference in Dar es Salaam yesterday, the First Lady spoke of the need to remove barriers in national efforts to enroll children in the Paediatric HIV Prevention, Care, Treatment and Support Programme.
``Without care and treatment nearly 50 per cent of children infected with HIV will die before their second birthday.
The best approach to save their lives is to ensure early infant HIV diagnosis and provide care, treatment and psychological support,`` Mama Salma explained.
She said there should be a special arrangement to identify children infected with HIV, adding that the process should start with the identification of infected expectant mothers to undergo early treatment as 60 per cent of people infected with HIV in sub-Saharan Africa were women.
Commenting on the role of the Ministry of Health and Social Welfare in ensuring treatment and care for children living with the virus that causes Aids, Mama Salma said the community, starting with the family unit, had the obligation to collectively fight obstacles encountered in caring for children.
She said there were reports that men were not cooperative in caring for the sick in the family, leaving everything in the hands of women. ``Collective responsibility in caring for the sick and fighting stigma is necessary,`` she insisted.
``It is important that we focus and aim high to intensify care and treatment services for both children and adults. Aids remains a serious challenge in this generation.
I commend the government for introducing free medication for Aids victims in 2005 and today there are more than 200 centres providing health services for HIV infected people,`` she explained.
On his part, Health and Social Welfare minister Prof. Homeli Mwakyusa, in a speech read on his behalf by the director of Human Resources Development, Dr. Gilbert Mliga, spoke of the seriousness of the problem, saying 40 million people live with HIV worldwide while 70 per cent of them live in sub-Saharan Africa, although the region constitutes only 10 per cent of the world population.
He said previously there were a number of barriers to the national efforts of enrolling into the Paediatric HIV Prevention, Care, Treatment and Support Programme that includes inadequate awareness of the public about the availability of treatment and care for children infected with HIV.
``When we started the care and treatment programme in 2004, there were no guidelines for health care workers on this service.
There was general lack of skills among health care workers in identifying HIV exposed and infected children who attend health facilities and providing them with appropriate care,`` said minister Mwakyusa.
However, management of children with HIV, said the minister, had been included as a core component of the Health Sector HIV Strategy, adding capacity for early infant HIV diagnosis had also been developed and available at Bugando Medical centre and the service to be extended to other referral hospitals in the country.
``The availability of ARVs for children, including fixed dose combination (FDC) has been increased to make antiretroviral treatment for children much easier now,`` he said.
The theme of the conference that drew more than 240 participants from Rwanda, Kenya, Zambia, US, South Africa and hosts Tanzania is, `Moving towards quality paediatric HIV prevention, care and treatment focusing on the need to raise national profile of paediatric HIV`.
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