Chioma Umeha
To reduce the growing proportion of new HIV
infections among children, Nigerian journalists have been called to increase
reports which promote issues bordering on the Elimination of Mother to Child
Transmission (eMTCT) of HIV.
Journalists Alliance for the Prevention of Mother
to Child Transimission of HIV/AIDS (JAPIN) in Calabar, Cross River State, made
the call recently during a three-day workshop it organised to assess individual
and collective efforts towards eMTCT of HIV with emphasis on communications
through the mass media.
Lamenting that Nigeria has the second highest
global burden of HIV/AIDS and also contributes the largest proportion of new
vertically acquired HIV infections among children, JAPIN said stressed media’s
role in halting the trend.
The meeting brought together journalists from
various media organisations across the country among other stakeholders in HIV
industry who expressed worry over the country’s poor indices infant HIV
infections.
For instance, Dr. Sunday Aboje, National
Coordinator, National AIDS/STI Control Programme, (NASCP) Federal Ministry of
Health, in his presentation, said that Nigeria is still home to the highest
number of children living with HIV/AIDS worldwide.
Dr Aboje, who was represented by Assistant Chief
Scientific Officer of the agency, Taiwo Olakunle, said “Nigeria has the second
highest burden of HIV globally with 3.4 million people estimated to be living
with HIV; 1.7 million HIV positive women and 380,000 children less than 15
years.
“Nigeria has the largest number of paediatric HIV
cases in the world. Nigeria also contributes the largest proportion of new
vertically acquired HIV infections among children.
“The country has come a long way in its effort to control the HIV/AIDS
epidemic, particularly in PMTCT. Beginning with the pioneer 11 PMTCT-provider
tertiary health facilities in 2002, the country now has 7,265 health facilities
providing PMTCT services at all levels of the health care system.”
Aboje, however, stated that Nigeria’s target on
eliminating new HIV cases in children among other things for 2018 was to ensure
50 per cent of HIV-exposed children have access to HIV prophylaxis treatment
and early infant diagnosis services.
He also declared that funding, inadequate
political commitment, and funding at state and LGA levels, weak health
infrastructure as well as inadequate engagement of the private health sector as
some challenges against eliminating new HIV cases in children.
However, Geoffrey Njoku, United Nations Children’s
Fund (UNICEF) Communications Expert, expressed grave concern on many pregnant
positive women who miss out on Anti-Retroviral Treatment (ART).
The Communications Expert urged journalists to
create greater awareness on the role of comprehensive package of PMTCT
interventions in eliminating child HIV infections.
The comprehensive package of PMTCT
interventions includes HIV testing
services (HTS), care of HIV-exposed infants comprising early infant diagnosis
and linkage to treatment (EID/T).
Others are family planning services,
antiretroviral (ARV) and Cotrimoxazole prophylaxis for mother-infant pairs,
cervical cancer screening and use of lifelong antiretroviral therapy (ART) for
women.
Dr Abiola Davies, HIV/AIDS Specialist and a senior
representative of UNICEF, who was also one of the workshop facilitators, charged
journalists to read wide, get accurate data on issues of PMTCT/eMTCT and attend
training to obtain accurate information to authenticate their reports.
