Health Commissioners, Key to MTCT Elimination – Expert …Calls For Motivation Of TBAs

In order to enhance efforts made to eliminate Mother-To-Child Transmission (MTCT) of HIV in Nigeria, an expert in Prevention of Mother-To-Child Transmission (PMTCT) of HIV/AIDS, Dr Abiola Davies, has called on Commissioners for Health in the country to go beyond signing documents to taking leadership roles in PMTCT response.
Dr Davies, who spoke in an exclusive interview, said the commissioners would need to take leadership roles in ensuring that frameworks and plans for PMTCT are implemented to the letter in their various States.
This, she said, should start with the commissioners ensuring that the resolve of the engagements with the 36 states of the country, including Abuja, on PMTCT is implemented in order to push the general agenda for the elimination of PMTCT in Nigeria.
“There was a national dialogue on the 4th of May on PMTCT, where the Minister of State (for Health), the Permanent Secretary, and the Director of Public Health attended, to put more focus on PMTCT. After that, there has been a process in which we had state engagements with the 36+1 states for them to start State-Focused Planning, State-Focused Framework to see how we can push the (PMTCT) agenda. A lot of the frameworks and plans were signed by the commissioners”, she said.
Moving forward, Dr Davies said, the Health commissioners need to go beyond the signing of the papers to ensuring strict implementation of the frameworks and plans in their various states.
One way to do this, she stated, is for them to use every available opportunity to advocate for PMTCT in their daily endeavours.
“We’ll also like to see that the commissioner for health advocates for PMTCT in every single forum he attends. We should be able to talk about it, we should be able to push towards the agenda, and when they have executive meetings, they should make it one of the priority discussions to ensure that there’s adequate funding to eliminate MTCT of HIV.
“These are the kind of things I believe we should start doing towards MTCT elimination in Nigeria”, she said.
She also used the opportunity to call for total incorporation of Traditional Birth Attendants (TBAs) in the process of eliminating MTCT, noting that the TBAs contributed to the increase in morbidity and mortality in pregnant women.
According to her, given the level of patronage TBAs get from pregnant women in Nigeria, they cannot be overlooked, hence deliberate efforts should be made to work closely with them towards, amongst others, eliminating MTCT.