World AIDS Day 2021
Today is World AIDS Day, and we at FAME are joining the global movement to highlight the challenges around access to HIV services and treatment, through our commitment to stopping new cases of HIV.
The Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS) estimates that as of 2020, there were 37.7 million people globally living with HIV. In sub-Saharan Africa, women and girls alone account for 63% of all new HIV infections.
While HIV testing has become more accessible around the world, there has been unequal progress in reducing new HIV infections, increasing access to treatment, and ending AIDS-related deaths, with too many vulnerable populations being left behind.
In Tanzania where we work, there are 1.7 million people living with HIV. As part of World AIDS Day, we are highlighting FAME’s Reproductive and Child Health Clinic (RCH), which is working hard to ensure access to HIV prevention services for mothers and their newborns in rural Tanzania.
In 2015, RCH identified a need to create a prevention of Mother-to-Child Transmission (MTCT) program. The program, which follows the protocols from the Tanzanian government, aims to prevent pediatric HIV/AIDS and improve the health of both mothers and their children, by providing HIV testing, treatment and care continuum.
FAME’s RCH currently provides 815 women with prenatal healthcare, and performs HIV tests for every pregnant woman who comes to the clinic. Pregnant women who are HIV positive receive antiretroviral therapy (ARV) and are carefully monitored throughout the remainder of their pregnancy, delivery and postnatal period. HIV medicines, when taken as prescribed, prevent HIV from multiplying and reduce the amount of HIV viral load in the body, greatly reducing the risk of parent to child transmission. Maintaining an undetectable viral load also helps keep the mother-to-be healthy. FAME’s RCH-MTCT program has successfully prevented the transmission of HIV from mother to child in more than 90% of cases where a mother is HIV positive.
In cases where a baby is born HIV positive, they are treated with ARVs up to the age of one and a half years. After this, any child who tests positive for HIV is referred to a government-operated HIV Care and Treatment Centre (CTC) for management of HIV/AIDS, while continuing to receive general healthcare from FAME’s RCH.
FAME’s Head of RCH, Joyce Ngowi, explains that in the beginning of the MTCT program, the women were not always receptive to the education and interventions provided, but with continued education and counseling, they are now much more responsive to advice and engage in the discussions.
FAME’s RCH is also involved in outreach programs and mobile clinics in rural villages, with the aim of educating the Traditional Birth Attendants (TBAs) on HIV transmission and prevention, especially during childbirth. Some TBA’s perform deliveries with bare hands or plastic bags, leaving them exposed to possible HIV transmission.
“At first they were resistant to this message as there's a lot of respect that comes from being a TBA in the community, not to mention the livestock they’re awarded by the families after a successful delivery. However, after consistent education and counseling they have become more receptive and eager to learn.”
- Head of RCH, Joyce Ngowi
RHC believes that investment in health and HIV/AIDS literacy accelerates ending global inequalities and is a crucial step towards eliminating HIV/AIDS.
Head of RCH, Joyce Ngowi, poses with RCH Nurse, Kitangile Masheyo, infront of the Afya ya Uzazi (Reproductive health) RCH clinic.
We tell them that HIV is no longer a death sentence. HIV testing is important as once you’re aware of your status, and take ARVs as prescribed, you can live a long healthy life with no risk of sexually transmitting HIV to partners, or transmitting the virus from mother to child during pregnancy”
-Joyce Ngowi