HIV: UNICEF Wants More Mother- To-Child Transmission Prevention Centres Nationwide

 

An HIV and AIDS specialist with UNICEF, Dr Idris Baba said in Abuja that such centres would help to reduce new infections among newborn babies.

“PMTCT should be part of Ante-Natal Care (ANC), so every ante-natal clinic that do not have PMTCT service is not complete.

“Primary healthcare centres should now provide mother to child prevention services, because that is where the people are, and that is the easiest for the people to access, the poor, the rural dwellers should be able to have access to PHCs, and then at the PHCs, there should be PMTCT services.

“So if a woman comes to any facility, where there is no PMTCT service, she should be referred to where there is services.’’

Baba said that presently, there was a low level of pregnant women attending ante-natal clinics, stressing that culture and religion was still a challenge.

He said that it was important for pregnant women to know that PMTCT services could be carried out by all skilled birth attendants.

“PMTCT is a very simple intervention, it’s not a high-tech intervention, it only takes the midwife or the nurse to know that this woman is HIV positive, then do some little intervention in terms of giving her the adequate knowledge that she needs to know about breastfeeding abscess and then provide the drugs.

“She doesn’t need much of deep investigation, so, it is something we can do at the PHC level.”

According to him, UNICEF is partnering with the FCT and Kaduna State to train all the midwives on how to carry out PMTCT services.

He said that it was the duty of an informed midwife to give the right information to pregnant women.

“We are partnering with FCT to train all the midwives in FCT, just like what we do in Kaduna on PMTCT services, they should be able to deliver PMTCT services, wherever they are, even if the woman is delivering at home.

“PMTCT services can also be delivered at home, the most important person is the midwife to be there so that she should know exactly what to be done in terms of minimal invasiveness in terms of the type of drugs to be given to the woman, if she is HIV positive, and where the woman is HIV negative, the type of information to be given to her to remain HIV negative.’’

Baba said that it was the right of every pregnant woman to attend ante-natal, stressing that stake holders and individuals should do all in their reach to create awareness.