Access to facilities for prevention of mother to child transmission of HIV, low –Expert

Despite the possibility of HIV transmission from mother to child being reduced to less than 1 per cent with new treatment modalities, no less than 85,450 babies born annually in Nigeria are still exposed to HIV at birth and 67,620 babies of HIV-infected mothers deprived of interventions that protect from contracting the virus.
Dr. Abiola Davies, an HIV/AIDS specialist with UNICEF stated this at the opening of a three-day meeting of the Journalists Alliance for Prevention of Mother to Child Transmission of HIV (PMTCT) held at Jos, Plateau State.
According to Dr. Davies, the magnitude of mother-to-child transmission of HIV in Nigeria was still high and required all efforts being channeled at closing up the gap in the uptake of services; quality and efficiency of interventions and integration of programmes areas into HIV prevention and funding.
Dr. Davies expressed concern that despite Nigeria’s 670 PMTCT services outlets, access to treatments that ensure prevention of mother-to-child transmission of HIV was low, attributing this partly to the treatment centres majorly sited in tertiary hospitals, poor coordination,  private sector non-involvement and user fee charges.
According to her, “there is a need to make these facilities absolutely user-free. If it is made 100 per cent free, women will take PMTCT services up. In states like Gombe where user fees were abolished, the number of women that come for PMTCT increased highly.”
However, she declared that virtual elimination of HIV was no longer a pipedream. “There is impressive body of evidence that combination ARV regimens can lead to a transmission rate that is less than 5 per cent even in breastfeeding populations, and the current situation in developed countries where combination of potent ARV drugs, elective caesarian sections and safe replacement feeding had led to transmission rates that is less or equal to 2 per cent,” she declared.
Shani Winterstein, an advocacy specialist with the UNICEF, assessing PMTCT activities in Nigeria, declared that Nigeria journalists had done a lot work on PMTCT reporting and urged them to still do more on monitoring and evaluation of PMTCT services.
Winterstein charged that the community, media, public and private sectors and other stakeholders should be engaged, stressing prevention of mother-to-child transmission of HIV was a joint venture that nobody could fight alone.
According to her, “There are lots of challenges that are closely associated with health delivery services, which are weak. Ensuring services are available, health workers are trained, drugs can be accessed and that mothers that test HIV positive come back to the clinic to receive the course of their medications, are all important.”
Source:http://tribune.com.ng/index.php/health-news/12731-access-to-facilities-for-prevention-of-mother-to-child-transmission-of-hiv-low-expert