Prevention of Mother ‎to Child Transmission of HIV: Kaduna Hits 90%  by 2018

By Alex Uangbaoje, Jos

Kaduna State Government is set to achieve 90% of Prevention of Mother to Child Transmission (PMTCT), of HIV by 2018 based on the current improvement of PMTCT coverage in the state. 

This was captured in a presentation by Catherine Ayuba, Director Prevention, Treatment, Care and Psychology of Kaduna State AIDS Control Agency (KADSACA), during a 5-day “Message and Materials Development workshop” for  Anti natal/PMTCT campaign, holding in Jos, Plateau State on Monday, organised by the Federal Ministry of Information and Tourism with support from United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF). 

According to her, PMTCT coverage in the state which was less than 20% by 2012, has now risen to 80% by the middle of 2017 ‎and she is hopeful that by 2018, the state will hit 90%.

She enumerated some of the strategies implored ‎by the state government to get to where she is currently as follows; “equity focused decentralization and scaling up of PMTCT services to Primary Healthcare (PHC) facilities including private health facilities.

“PMTCT scale up

Engagement of private health care providers for provision of HIV and AIDS CTS services

Procure CD4 count machines, hematology and chemistry equipment and reagents to 4 private facilities”.

Ayuba added that the state government also “formed a State and LGA demand creation team chaired by the First Lady and wives of LGA chairmen at LGA levels

Sensitization of wives of LGA chairmen facilitated by the first lady.

“Sensitization of Religious leaders from the 23 LGAs of the state, ‎identification and capacity development of CSOs for eMTCT advocacy, mobilization and monitoring, Collaboration with National Orientation Agency (NOA) and Communication for Development (C4D) and conducted community dialogue in selected communities”

“We trained, equip and deployed 1181 ANC/eMTCT demand creators of existing Agric Extension Workers, polio Volunteers Community Mobilizers (VCMs), malaria Rural Community Mobilizers (RCMs), and HIV Interpersonal Communication (IPC), volunteers for intensive house to house demand creation

“Developed  and aired several radio messages and jingles to promote ANC/PMTCT by electronic media houses‎.”

Earlier, while declaring the workshop open, Professor Dorothy Nbori-Ngacha, Chief of HIV/AIDS UNICEF Nigeria, told participants that the meeting became important because of the big gap between the national target and the reality. 

“Penetration is high, the need to reach the women is high, but then the challenges you have is that the women you want to reach are the most vulnerable, that is your biggest challenge. 

“Do they read and write, do they understand our language when you talk about PMTCT? So this is why we are having this messaging workshop to see how do we reach these women in a way that they understand, and in way that much of them can come back. 

“In Adamawa and Kaduna, there is a lot of work going on to improve the quality of antinatal care and to improve health seeking behaviour. Your states are in the frontrunner state, so take it very importantly as frontrunner state. 

“We are going to be measuring the trend,‎ the federal level is looking at us ‎to see if they learn something from here, it could be an approach to use in the bigger Nigeria.” Professor Nbori-Ngacha added. 

The workshop whose participants were drawn from Adamawa and Kaduna State is aimed at producing ‎messages and materials for ANC/PMTCT campaigns for the two states.