Experts offer tips for ensuring HIV-free babies

Written by Sade Oguntola
IT was the consensus by medical experts that the number of children born with HIV in Nigeria could be reduced to the barest minimum if couples ensure that they are tested for HIV and HIV-positive pregnant women access HIV medicines and other HIV prevention initiatives available in the country.

Speaking at a special clinical ground to mark the retirement of Professor Kikelomo Osinusi, the outgoing Head of Department of Pediatrics, College of Medicine, University of Ibadan, Dr Regina Oladokun, stated that HIV was now an important childhood survival issue, which was threatening to reverse the gains Nigeria had made in reduction of infant mortality rate in years past.

Dr Oladokun, who pointed out that over 90 per cent of Nigeria’s 290, 000 HIV-positive babies got the virus from their parents, stated that children’s HIV would almost be removed if adults would get tested and children are transfused with only screened and tested blood as well as avoid the use of unsterilised sharp objects in cultural practices such as scarification and circumcision.

The pediatrician, while expressing concern that the number of pregnant women testing for HIV was still low, said “most of the children that we see now with HIV are those whose parents were not screen for HIV until after they were born. The baby may get sick or the mother feels unwell and following suspicion, she is tested for HIV.”

Dr Oladokun, urging that hospitals that can provide facilities to prevent mother to child transmission of HIV be made to include private and primary health care centres, decried the poor involvement of men in programmes targeted at ensuring HIV-free babies and HIV testing.

According to her, “if the prevention of HIV from mother to child is made widespread, and as such pregnant women know their HIV status and get HIV medicines, not only would they prevent their babies having HIV, also they would be saving their own lives.”

Dr Biobele Brown, who spoke on HIV field finding, stated that few babies were tested to confirm if they had HIV despite the federal government’s recommendation on this and the fact that early treatment in HIV-positive babies ensured their better survival and quality of life.

According to him, in a study involving 600 babies tested for HIV, 10 per cent turned out to be HIV-positive, adding that disclosure of HIV status was a challenge to many caregivers.

Dr Brown, citing the case of a father that had his baby transfused with his blood after the baby lost plenty of blood from female circumcision, who later developed HIV, warned against transfusing any untested blood, irrespective of the donor.

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