Uganda: Rate Of Mother-To-Child HIV Infections Drop Significantly
By Staff Writer
Major interventions by Ugandan government have seen the rate of pediatric HIV infections through mother-to-child transmission drop significantly over the past two years, said Dr. Backline Balungi Kanywa, manager of medical care at Baylor College of Medicine children’s foundation-Uganda.
The number of Ugandan HIV-positive mothers who pass on the virus to their unborn babies has reportedly dropped from 40% to 2% within a very short time.
Dr. Kanywa, said if men were fully involved in the HIV/AIDS prevention campaign, that 2% statistic would be no more.
“If men are fully involved in the HIV/AIDS prevention campaigns, like spearheading the family testing, drug taking and adherence to drugs, the current 2% pediatric infections would be history,” she said.
According to Kanywa, the country’s current performance in preventing pediatric HIV infections is, above all, greatly indebted to the introduction of the Elimination of the Mother to Child Transmission (EMTCT) programme.
The medical doctor said that women currently leading the campaign always get scared of telling their husbands about their status due to fear of being abandoned, adding that if the men can join the campaign and stand together with their spouses, having an HIV free generation will easily be achieved.
Kanywa praised the now-household blitz campaign for couples to always test for HIV so as to save their unborn children.
“This is a chronic disease and is no longer a death sentence. Let’s work together to have an HIV free generation,” she said.
Currently, Baylor has approximately 6,500 clients among whom 70% are children under the age of 15 years who acquired the virus from their mothers through the mother to child transmission.
“We have mothers who bring children to the hospital because they are sick and thus in the process get to know their status their and then,” said Kanywa.
She also revealed that 10% of the patients admitted at Baylor are diagnosed with tuberculosis (TB), and that 60% of TB patients are HIV positive, with TB being the number one killer among the patients.
Dr. Doreen Male Birabwa, deputy executive director at Mulago Hospital, said that pediatric treatment is no longer a burden at the referral facility due to the presence of Baylor which she says is a centre of excellence for pediatric treatment.
Grace Nassali, a mother of three HIV + children says that seeking treatment at Baylor College of Medicine has restored hope ever since she lost her husband.
Many African countries have stepped up war against the scourge, which is HIV/AIDS, by emphasizing on creating awareness campaigns through the media, and door to door HIV testing under the Voluntary Testing and Counseling (VCT) as modes of combating the second most killer disease in the continent after Malaria.