Zambia
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Zambia Capacity Project
It is alsoTHUMBS UP for Zambia capacity project, in the very able hands of Jane Chitanda and Freddie Mubanga and their team from the NFNC. As we praise the Gambia for enacting its national law on the Code we also congratulate Zambia for also coming up with a National Law. Not as strong as the Gambia but achieving a fairly high level on the ICDC scale (Level 2 meaning many provisions of The Code as law).
Posted by ibfanafrica on 05 Feb 2007 | Tagged as: Capacity Building, Zambia
Exclusive breastfeeding proving helpful in PMTCT in Zambia
Medical staff at the Matero Clinic in Lusaka, the capital of Zambia, are making strides in the prevention of mother to child transmission (PMTCT) of HIV by encouraging exclusive breastfeeding for six months.Unlike in Guyana, where HIV-infected mothers are encouraged not to breastfeed their babies, the mothers in Lusaka and other parts of Zambia are encouraged to breastfeed exclusively for about six months and then to stop completely, when they are advised to do so by health care workers. This has resulted in fewer babies testing HIV positive.Clinical Director of the Centre for Infectious Disease Research in Zambia (CIDRZ) Dr Caroline Bolton said the decision to go the route of exclusive breastfeeding was taken some time ago after it was realised that it was too expensive for mothers to feed their babies using formula. It was also discovered that among formula-fed babies there was a high incidence of death from diarrhoeal and other water-borne diseases as access to clean water in some communities is almost non-existent. The rate of HIV infection among these babies was also still high.Physician Dr Mannasseh Phiri, who is also an AIDS activist, explained that it was difficult for the mothers to find money to purchase the coals to boil water to make safe feed for their babies. “They would prefer to keep the coals to cook food,” he said. Both doctors explained too that since in the past it was known that HIV positive mothers could not breastfeed, women who did not want their status known, would give the formula, but still breastfeed in public.”So they would breastfeed and bottle feed the baby. But feeding the baby with cold and sometimes tainted formula would cause the baby’s insides [or mouths] to become sore [bruised], making it easier for the child to be come infected,” Dr Phiri explained. Adherence However, adherence by the HIV positive mothers has been admirable, the doctors said. One example is Lillian Mukuka, an HIV positive widow, who had not heard about HIV prior to 2005. She did not even suspect that she was carrying the virus.Mukuka is the mother of four children. She said her husband died last year, after having suffered several bouts of illness.”My husband died last year when I was pregnant with my daughter. I didn’t even know about HIV. He was very sick,” she said. “I discovered that I was positive when I went to the clinic for ante-natal services. I didn’t know I had the disease.”
Mukuka said she did not know much about HIV and accepted her status. She said she was advised to take Nevirapine to reduce the chances of her child contracting the disease.
“Before my daughter was born I was given Nevirapine and when my daughter was born she was given Septrin,” she said.
She said she was advised by the doctor to exclusively breastfeed her daughter until she was five months and three weeks old.
“It was very difficult for me because she was hungry all the time and she used to cry a lot.
The doctor advised me not to give her any solid food or other liquids, not even water,” she said. “I followed the doctor’s instructions and my daughter has had no problems.”
Mukuka stopped breastfeeding her baby in October on the doctor’s advice. “The problem I had was to buy milk for my child, I did not have any money,” she said, so that doctor gave me a letter to take to Chipata clinic, where they linked me with an organisation called Chipo which gives me milk for Natasha.”
Natasha has accepted solid food, eats a lot more and is less irritable.
“Up to now she has not had any problems, she can sit, she can walk, just like any other baby. Now I am just waiting for her to be tested for HIV when she is one year and six months, to see if the treatment worked,” Mukuka said. “She didn’t have sores in her mouth, and has not been sick since she was born.”
Mukuka says it is important for parents and guardians to ensure they take an HIV test and have their children tested as well.
“HIV is a very serious disease, if you just keep staying at home or keep your children at home, they can die,” she said.
Mukuka is not yet on anti-retroviral treatment because her CD4 count is still high.
Dr Bolton said making breastfeeding safer was an emerging challenge in prevention of mother to child transmission of HIV.
She said a trial was done in Botswana with exclusively breastfed babies and bottle feed babies and it was found that they both had the same mortality rates. “The fight is now to find a safe way to have the mothers breastfeed their babies,” she said.
This new regimen is just one of the groundbreaking activities at the multi-purpose Matero Clinic which caters for some of Lusaka’s poorest people.
The clinic, with a catchment of 103,000 persons, is busy every day. And it will soon join eight other clinics in Lusaka which administer a combined treatment regimen of AZT and Nevirapine to HIV positive mothers in the PMTCT programme.
According to Dr Perry Killman, Medical Head of the Zambia Prenatal Record System (ZEPRAS), this regimen has proven to more effective than Nevirapine alone. He said it has been endorsed by the World Health Organisation (WHO) and was researched in many countries in Africa and South East Asia and has proven to be successful.
Posted by ibfanafrica on 12 Jan 2007 | Tagged as: Breastfeeding, HIV, Zambia
Exclusive breastfeeding proving helpful in PMTCT in Zambia
Medical staff at the Matero Clinic in Lusaka, the capital of Zambia, are making strides in the prevention of mother to child transmission (PMTCT) of HIV by encouraging exclusive breastfeeding for six months.
Unlike in Guyana, where HIV-infected mothers are encouraged not to breastfeed their babies, the mothers in Lusaka and other parts of Zambia are encouraged to breastfeed exclusively for about six months and then to stop completely, when they are advised to do so by health care workers. This has resulted in fewer babies testing HIV positive. Continue Reading »
Posted by ibfanafrica on 11 Jan 2007 | Tagged as: Breastfeeding, HIV, Zambia
