The National AIDS Control Programme (NACP) has lamented the increasing number of mother-to-child HIV transmissions despite initiatives put in place to eliminate it, such as the Prevention of Mother-to-Child Transmission (PMTCT) program.
The Prevention of Mother-to-Child Transmission (PMTCT) is one of the interventions instituted by the NACP, the Ghana AIDS Commission (GAC), and their partners to prevent HIV transmission from mothers to their babies.
With this intervention, pregnant women would have to get tested for HIV at an Antenatal care service and those found positive would be put on medication to protect the baby from getting infected.
Programme Manager of the National AIDS Control Programme (NACP), Dr. Stephen Ayisi-Addo, states that due to insufficient testing and medication adherence among pregnant women, there continues to be a transmission of HIV from mothers to their babies.
The Programme Manager also indicated that the lack of adherence to medication among HIV-infected mothers was resulting in transmission from mothers to their newborns.
He also highlighted that postnatal transmission was occurring due to breastfeeding, as some mothers struggle to adhere to guidelines. These gaps contribute to the ongoing transmission records.
Due to a shortage of trained service providers, the Programme Manager acknowledged that the infant feeding guidelines for people with HIV had been scaled back. This has led to inadequate education for mothers on proper feeding procedures, potentially exposing their babies to the virus.
The NACP is determined to address these challenges and aims to reduce mother-to-child transmission rates to at least 2%, aligning with the elimination target.
SOURCE -GraphicOnline.com
