AHF Trains Women On Eliminating Mother-to-Infant HIV Transmission

By Justina Auta

AIDS Healthcare Foundation (AHF), an NGO, trained Nasarawa women of child bearing age living with Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV) on elimination of transmission of the disease to their infants.

Mrs Christy Awunor, the AHF Nursing Coordinator in Nasarawa, said that the training was necessary to enable the women to mentor others.

She explained that the training was also in view of the 2020 National Guidelines for HIV Prevention, Treatment and Care, which showed an increase in the number of children contracting HIV.

She added that “we are here to mentor mothers as components of the Prevention of Mother to Child Transmission (PMTCT) of the virus.

“We are all aware of the new infections according to the 2020 national guidelines that over 22,000 children are getting infected annually.

“And we know that it is possible to eliminate mother to child transmission of HIV as we head toward the 2030 UN target to eliminate PMTCT infection.

“PMTCT is a cascade of its own and one of the components is mentoring mothers who are HIV positive and have gone through a process where they have children that are HIV negative because of the treatment.”

She said because they have passed through the process of PMTCT, it would make it easier for them to counsel new mothers about the infection.

According to her, those trained will counsel others on how to take care of themselves and not pass the infection to their children.

She said a similar training was held in Kogi, Benue and the FCT, and AHF would continue to implement programmes in states through to the early part of 2024.

The coordinator said “these women live in communities where they can easily reach other pregnant women and can easily encourage them to attend Antenatal Care (ANC) to have their HIV Testing Services (HTS) done.

“This will enable them to know their status because there is actually low uptake of testing and access to PMTCT services particularly for mothers who are positive, for many reasons.”

Also, Caroline Ulamo, the State Monitoring and Evaluation Assistant, AHF, added that the rate of HIV transmission from infected mothers to infants remained high, especially in rural areas.

“We still have it for those who stay in hard to reach areas.’’

She, therefore, stressed the need for more health education, especially at the community level, engaging mentor mothers, community and religious leaders to support in the elimination of the condition.

Mr Solomon Otene, an Antiretroviral Therapy (ART) Nurse, AHF Nasarawa, said that the training was to recruit new HIV positive mothers into mentoring programmes to reduce prevalence of PMTCT.

He said “we need them to engage and counsel those newly accessing ART services to encourage them because stigma is still on the rise.

“Some of these new clients when you disclose their results, they react in different ways.

“But when mentor mothers trained as counsellors advice and share their personal experiences and how to protect their babies from being infected, it helps in reducing prevalence and increasing access to ART.”

Mrs Lasson Ashley, state Treasurer, Network of People Living with HIV/AIDS in Nigeria (NEPWHAN), encouraged participants to desist from self-stigmatisation and advocate for the elimination of mother to child transmission.

Joy John, a participant, decried the challenges affecting HIV positive children, which would have been averted if pregnant mothers had adhered to the instructions on preventing transmission.

She added that the training had increased her knowledge on advocacy toward engaging community members on elimination of mother to child transmission of the virus. (NAN)

Edited by Abiemwense Moru/Hadiza Mohammed-Aliyu