Govt opens centres for AIDS patients in teaching hospitals
From Mike Osunde, Benin
AS a booster to the global crusade against the ravages of the Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome, (AIDS), the Federal Government has began the establishment of satellite care centres to complement the services of teaching hospitals already dispensing anti-retroviral drugs for persons living with HIV/AIDS.
This information came from the Programme Officer of John Hopkins University Centre for Communication, Mr. Thomas Ofam, during a two-day workshop for journalists in Benin, Edo State, to sensitise them in the new approach in the war against HIV/AIDS scourge.
The programme on the" Mother-to-Child" transmission began some two months ago.
Two such centres, the St. Philomena Catholic Hospital and the Irrua Specialist Hospital, in Edo State, function to complement services of the University of Benin Teaching Hospital (UBTH).
Similar centres are in Kano where the Aminu Kano Teaching Hospital is the principal partner, the University of Nigeria Teaching Hospital (UNTH) Enugu, the National Hospital, Abuja, and the Lagos University Teaching Hospital (LUTH), Idi-Araba.
Besides their antenatal care, the centres have a primary mandate of the prevention of mother-to-child transmission (PMTC) of the Human Immune Deficiency Virus (HIV).
According to experts on the deadly disease, the mandate became imperative when statistics put one out of every 20 pregnant women as being HIV positive.
Further statistics had also shown that 270,000 estimated number of children between ages 0-15 were already infected with HIV in Nigeria, where the prevalence rate was put at five per cent bringing the total number of infected adults to about 3.1 million.
Government is hoping to use the centres to scale down the number of infants who could be infected through their mother during pregnancy.
Speaking on the facilities, Ofam explained that the expectant mothers at the centre who have tested HIV positive were given counselling and other treatment.
At St. Philomena's Hospital, the Chief Matron, Rev. Sister Martina Ogbekhiulu, who spoke with journalists said besides ante-natal care, the hospital which celebrated its 62 years of service last month also promotes good family values such as abstinence from pre-marital-sex and marital faithfulness by married couples, as better ways of checking the spread of the deadly disease.
She said since the centre began operations, 201 pregnant women had been counselled and out of which 10 tested positive to HIV.
Ogbekhiulu said five husbands of the 10 women, were also counselled and tested, adding that only three of the men were living with HIV, while the other two tested negative.
Also, a female student from a tertiary institution in the state who showed up for voluntary testing, also tested positive at the centre, she added.
Ogbekhiulu, who assured of the availability of drugs at the centre, said the hospital however, lost two patients before delivery, and one after birth, in the period under review.
While calling on government to take over and help to sustain the programme, Ogbekhiulu said that the sponsorship of the activities at the centre by the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), through the family Health International, would be withdrawn in March 2005.
