40 HIV Positive Pregnant Women Access Drugs (PMTCT); As 12 Babies Born HIV Free From Positive Mothers in Anambra Hospital

            

 No fewer than forty HIV positive pregnant women have so far accessed the Prevention of Mother to Child Transmission of HIV (PMTCT) centre at the Anambra State University Teaching Hospital, Awka between January and October this year.

odogwublog.com reports that the figure was given  by the Chief Medical Director of the hospital, Dr Lawrence Ikeakor while interacting with the Anambra State chapter of Journalists Alliance for Prevention of Mother to Child Transmission of HIV in Nigeria (JAPiN)  shortly after a three-day workshop on advocacy and alliance building for PMTCT services organized by the Anambra State Ministry of Health in collaboration with UNICEF in Abagana, Njikoka Local Government Area of Anambra State.

Dr Ikeakor who is the immediate past commissioner for Health in the state revealed that the number of PMTCT sites in the state rose from 200 when he was in the ministry to over 400 in 2014, which he said were located in various parts of the state.

He attributed the poor patronage of the sites in the state to the inability of some of the less privileged pregnant women living with HIV in the remote areas of the State to transport themselves to the PMTCT centres for treatment.

The CMD disclosed that the HIV positive pregnant women who are in the hospital to access PMTCT facilities are usually kept in the same ward with other pregnant women as a way of avoiding stigmatization.

He explained that the reason for this action is to give the HIV positive pregnant women the opportunity to interact with those who are negative, especially as the disease cannot be passed through staying together, shaking hands or even eating together.

Dr Ikeakor further revealed that about 300 pregnant women presently visit the hospital for antenatal care, explaining that whenever any of them  tested HIV positive, the very patient would be placed on antiretroviral drug so as to prevent mother to child transmission.

Efforts by the team to speak with some of the women who are positive failed as the CMD insisted that the size of the team may scare them, adding that the hospital is doing its best to make them feel normal to avoid any form of stigmatization that may make them abscond.

Similarly, 12 HIV negative babies have been born to 12 HIV positive women attending antenatal health care at Saint Faith Hospital and Maternity, Awka in Anambra State.