HIV/AIDS: Expert Urges Govt To Institute ANC For Women

An expert in Public Health, Prof. Charles Tobin-West, has called on the Rivers State Government to explore ways of making it imperative for pregnant women to access Ante-Natal Care (ANC) during pregnancy.
This, he said, should be geared towards ensuring that the gap witnessed in HIV-positive mothers and ANC is bridged.
Making the call in an exclusive interview recently, Prof Tobin-West, who is a Professor in Public Health in the University of Port Harcourt Teaching Hospital, stated that one key way to achieve this is for the government to ensure that women are recruited into attending ANC, which is provided in all Primary Health Care (PHC) facilities across the state.
“The importance of attending ANC during pregnancy can never be over emphasised. It is one of the veritable ways of ensuring that women are properly looked after during pregnancy to ensure that delivery outcomes are better”, he said.
Dr Tobin-West noted that knowing that available data shows that the state is lagging behind in the number of pregnant women accessing ANC, it behoves the State Primary Health Care Board to come up with ways of instituting ANC for pregnant women.
According to him, this can be done through the Local Government Areas (LGAs), Medical Officer of Health, and the Health Care Centres across the state.
He stated that women should be reoriented from communities in the LGAs and made to understand the benefits of ANC care for their children before delivery.
He also used the opportunity to explain that when pregnant women dutifully access ANC, it is easier to carry out Early Infant Diagnosis (EID) on HIV/AIDS, and tracking of such women and their infants.
Tobin-West continued that women that are tracked should be enrolled into treatment, and be given treatment such that “even when the women are getting lost, you can call the treatment supporter.
“One of the two key functions of the treatment supporter is to ensure that the women take part in treatment and in facility attendance for both counselling and adherence”, he stated.

By:  Sogbeba Dokubo