By Chinyere Amalu
General, National Agency for the Control of AIDS (NACA) Prof. John Idoko says the wide gaps in the Prevention of Mother-to-Child Transmission of HIV (PMTCT) need to be addressed, particularly the issue of breast feeding by women living with HIV.

He said a component of the  intervention strategy had to do with drugs, adding, “it is the most cost effective way of preventing the transmission of the virus was indeed suffering some setback as the human cost of the epidemic was still very high.”

“Scaling up access to prevention, treatment, care and support interventions remained a major challenge in tackily HIV/AIDS, specially PMTCT in Nigeria. For instance coverage of those in ART is 33 per cent, PMTCT 12.5 per cent and HCT 8 per cent.

“For us to achieve the desired coverage, health system must be strengthen to deliver sustainable integrated HIV & AIDS services within the Primary Health Care and community health systems.”

He said women who are HIV positive and are not in any form of intervention if they breastfeed as  their babies have 40 per cent transmission risk. “We can allow the women to breast feed, but they must be covered within the period of pregnancy and after birth for six months. This way we can be sure there will be little chances of transmission to children.”

National Programme Officer, UNAIDS, representing UN agencies Joint team implementing programmes on HIV & AIDS, Mrs. Modupe Oduwole, pointed out that Nigeria represents 30 per cent gap of PMTCT of HIV & AIDS globally.

She warned that although PMTCT is a cost effective means of preventing HIV transmission, if nothing is done by 2012, there will be a  large pool of children infected. The Joint UN team is hoping that by 2012, 80 per cent of pregnant women will be free of PMTCT, and all exposed children will be adequately taken care of and 30 per cent of the children  will have access to ART.