News / Health
Children missing ARV treatment
20 Jun 2016 at 02:04hrs | Views
THE Ministry of Health and Child Care is worried that 2,022 children in Midlands province who should be initiated on antiretroviral therapy (ART) are not on the data base, raising fears about their health, an official said. Last year, the province identified 3,000 children to be included on the treatment but only 978 are taking the life-serving drugs.
Gweru District Medical Officer, Dr Shakespeare Mureyani, giving a provincial HIV update at the National Aids Council (Nac) provincial heads meeting on Wednesday, said of the 231 health facilities that offer ART in the province, only 23 were offering paediatric ART services.
"The province managed to commence 978 children on ART with a set target of 3,000. There is a gap, a missing number of children who should be on ART but are not. Where are they and how are they surviving? The Ministry is worried about those missing children," he said.
Dr Mureyani said there was a need to train more health care workers on paediatric ART to enable decentralisation of the services. He said some parents were not bringing their children for treatment due to various reasons including stigmatisation and unavailability of health care centres within their areas.
"On the job training and mentorship should be ongoing and should be strengthened. We are looking at strategies to get to them so that they are initiated on ART. Some parents out of fear of stigmatisation are not forthcoming with their children and we need to reach them," he said.
Dr Mureyani said there was a need to integrate HIV testing services into existing programmes like Extended Programme for Immunisation (EPI) and the nutrition program to bring on board all children who are on ART and those who are supposed to access the drugs.
He said the province which has eight administrative districts and is predominantly rural has a population of 1,673,779 people, according to Zimstat. Nac provincial HIV and Aids coordinator, Mambewu Shumba told the same meeting that the Midlands provincial HIV prevalence is 13,8 percent.
He said the highest HIV prevalence is in Gweru District at 20.3 percent, then Kwekwe at 17.8 percent while the lowest is in Gokwe North at 5.7 percent. "The Midlands provincial incidence is 0.66 percent, and has 97,000 people on ART," he said.
Gweru District Medical Officer, Dr Shakespeare Mureyani, giving a provincial HIV update at the National Aids Council (Nac) provincial heads meeting on Wednesday, said of the 231 health facilities that offer ART in the province, only 23 were offering paediatric ART services.
"The province managed to commence 978 children on ART with a set target of 3,000. There is a gap, a missing number of children who should be on ART but are not. Where are they and how are they surviving? The Ministry is worried about those missing children," he said.
Dr Mureyani said there was a need to train more health care workers on paediatric ART to enable decentralisation of the services. He said some parents were not bringing their children for treatment due to various reasons including stigmatisation and unavailability of health care centres within their areas.
"On the job training and mentorship should be ongoing and should be strengthened. We are looking at strategies to get to them so that they are initiated on ART. Some parents out of fear of stigmatisation are not forthcoming with their children and we need to reach them," he said.
Dr Mureyani said there was a need to integrate HIV testing services into existing programmes like Extended Programme for Immunisation (EPI) and the nutrition program to bring on board all children who are on ART and those who are supposed to access the drugs.
He said the province which has eight administrative districts and is predominantly rural has a population of 1,673,779 people, according to Zimstat. Nac provincial HIV and Aids coordinator, Mambewu Shumba told the same meeting that the Midlands provincial HIV prevalence is 13,8 percent.
He said the highest HIV prevalence is in Gweru District at 20.3 percent, then Kwekwe at 17.8 percent while the lowest is in Gokwe North at 5.7 percent. "The Midlands provincial incidence is 0.66 percent, and has 97,000 people on ART," he said.
Source - chronicle
