Uganda Health Having an HIV negative baby is now possible

By Charlotte Muhwezi

Every mother’s dream is to give birth to a healthy baby and watch them grow strong and succeed in life without any ailments. This has not been the case for many women in Uganda due to the HIV&AIDS scourge. Many mothers in the past have given birth to children who get infected with HIV virus because there hasn’t been any medical provisions to protect their babies during birth.

This is not the case anymore thanks to the Government of Uganda and many partners like the USAID funded SPEAR (Supporting Public Sector Workplaces to Expand Action and Responses Against HIV and AIDS) project implemented by World Vision in partnership with Research Triangle Institute (RTI) International. Through the elimination of Mother-to-Child Transmission (eMTCT) program, many HIV positive mothers have testified to giving birth to healthy babies which has brought back their long lost hope. SPEAR has been able to reach out to 14 Police and Prisons Health facilities across the country with the eMTCT program where all HIV positive,

pregnant and lactating mothers are enrolled on “Option B+” (full Highly Active Antiretroviral Therapy -HAARTfor life) .

During this program SPEAR has been able to help the Health facilities get Antiretroviral (ART)

accreditations from Ministry of Health which gives them approval to access ART drugs, be trained, as well as be mentored in the management of HAART for adults and children.

In a recent function, The First Lady of Uganda, Janet Museveni, launched the eMTCT campaign on where she publicly tested for HIV/AIDS to encourage other mothers to know their status . Annet Kasajja a mother of four, is an HIV positive parent who found out that she was HIV positive when she was expecting her last born.

Her first three children are healthy because she contracted HIV when she was pregnant with her fourth child. Through the partnership with the Health facility, Nsambya Police Health center IV , Annet whose husband is a police officer is able to get free treatment and counseling, caregiver kits, jerricans, and mosquito nets among others which was not the case before SPEAR’s intervention. Annet’s life was difficult in the past, “I fell sick regularly, was very stressed and had lost all hope since I could not afford to buy the drugs. Life was very meaningless and every day my pain got worse” she says. Her story changed

when she started getting help from the Police Health facility, “If I hadn’t been helped to give birth to an HIV negative baby through the eMTCT program where one gets antiretroviral treatment, my baby would now be sick and I would be living a very miserable life” Annet says.

With this new initiative, World Vision is helping many HIV infected mothers will be able to have HIV negativebabies who will enjoy their childhood.

This would never have happened if the government together with its partners like SPEAR, had not taken a step to enhance the eMTCT campaign. HIV positive mothers now have a gleam of hope on their faces.