ADDIS ABABA, ETHIOPIA – New research by community activists from Cameroon, Cote D’Ivoire, Ethiopia, and Nigeria finds that women’s health is still not a priority within programmes to prevent vertical transmission of HIV, despite all the recent declarations and summits on maternal health. The research report launched at the African AIDS Conference (ICASA) in Addis Ababa today calls for more comprehensive care for women and families as part of the drive to end vertical transmission of HIV.
African governments are revising their national plans to meet the targets set in the Global Plan Towards Elimination of New HIV Infections in Children by 2015 and Keeping Their Mothers Alive. The four countries in this report are priority countries because the gap between the need for and access to vertical transmission services is among the largest in the world.
Activists are calling on African leaders to set the bar based on the latest science and not declining budgets as they scale up programmes to meet the global goals of reducing HIV infection among children and AIDS-related maternal deaths.
“At podiums, politicians talk about women being the center of the programmes to prevent vertical transmission of HIV. But in national plans, programmes and budgets, women are simply forgotten,” said Aditi Sharma of International Treatment Preparedness Coalition, coordinator of the report. “If governments continue to fail to use this opportunity to stop a cycle of HIV and health problems, for a woman as well as her children, her male partner and her community, they will certainly fail to meet their health goals.”
This week at ICASA, host country Ethiopia announced a new Emergency Plan on Prevention of Mother to Child Transmission.
Responding to the launch, Hereni Yalew of the National Network of Positive Women Ethiopians (NNPWE) said, “We welcome Ethiopia’s new plan for ending vertical transmission of HIV and the Minister of Health’s recognition of how women’s groups have helped to ensure that more women are using services – from HIV testing to antenatal care. The next step is to involve women’s groups more fully in designing a programme that better responds to the needs of the community and meets the goals that Ethiopia has set itself.”
Revised national plans and programmes to prevent vertical transmission of HIV and keep mothers alive and healthy must address common barriers that community researchers identified in all four countries.
“Women must get all the services they need to stay healthy. In Cameroon, antiretroviral drugs are free and the national policy says that HIV tests should also be free. But many women told us that have to pay 500 CFA (US$1) in public facilities and over 3,000 CFA in private facilities. Testing and treatment of sexually transmitted infections is several times more expensive and beyond the reach of most women,” says Sandrine Mataffeu, of the Central Africa Treatment Action Group (CATAG) in Cameroon.
“Many of the health authorities and service providers interviewed in Cote D’Ivoire considered the lack of male involvement as one of the weakest points of the national programme. Giving incentives for couples to attend testing and care together would help reduce the fear of rejection and blame that many women face,” said Sylvère Bukiki of the West Africa Treatment Action Group (WATAG) in Cote D’Ivoire.
“We are calling on Africa to say no to single-dose nevirapine. Women in rich countries get the best drugs and counseling to prevent vertical transmission of HIV. In Nigeria and many other countries in Africa women are still receiving single-dose nevirapine when scientific studies have shown that it can cause drug resistance and put their future treatment at risk,” said Olayide Akanni of Journalists Against AIDS (JAAIDS) in Nigeria.
Other common themes emerging from the four countries include:
- Lack of proper guidance and correct information about infant feeding choice
- Lack of integration between HIV prevention services and sexual and reproductive and maternal and child health services
- Recent WHO guidelines on earlier initiation of treatment for pregnant women and the use of more effective regimens to prevent vertical transmission of HIV are not being fully implemented
The Long Walk: Ensuring comprehensive care for women and families to end vertical transmission of HIV also includes updates from six countries that reported on this issue in 2009. These updates show some progress, including testing scale up, training of healthcare workers and integration of services. However, women still lack correct infant feeding guidance in most countries, and continue to face widespread stigma in health care settings.
At ICASA, activists are also calling on governments not to walk away from the AIDS response just as new science and proven interventions make ending AIDS a possibility.
“Donor and governments cannot promise to eliminate vertical transmission and reduce AIDS-related maternal mortality by 2015 on the one hand and on the other starve the Global Fund to fight AIDS, TB and Malaria or promote free trade agreements that kills off generic competition essential for affordable drugs,” added Sharma.
The full report is available at four4women.org.
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This press release is reprinted by Alanna Shaikh out of an obscure sense of guilt. It does not represent the opinions of Alanna Shaikh or any of her employers.
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