By Sola Ogundipe

IF adequate intervention steps are taken to close the tap of new paediatric HIV infections in Nigeria, no less than 70,000 babies of HIV positive pregnant mothers will be born free of the virus every year.

But without intervention to tackle the menace of Mother To Child Transmission of HIV (MTCT) in the country, an estimated 210,000 HIV positive pregnant women could transmit the virus to their babies at birth or through breastfeeding during the post natal period.

HIV & AIDS specialist with UNICEF, Dr. Abiola Davies who made the observation, asserted that if there was a sustainable and efficient HIV prevention and elimination process in place, every year, Nigeria would be ensuring the survival of an average of 22,333 HIV infected infants who, otherwise, would have died before their first birthday.

Statistics show that without intervention, 67,000 HIV infected infa nts inNigeriadie before their first birthday.

Davies, who spoke in Port Harcourt, Rivers State during the annual regional meeting of the Journalists Alliance for the Prevention and Elimination of Mother To Child Transmission of HIV (JAPE), said a good HIV intervention process that is attained through the antenatal care process, would also guarantee the survival of every other HIV positive infant who would not have lived to see its 2nd birthday if there had been no intervention.

In a presentation entitled “Why Nigeria Must Act”, Davies observed that “In Nigeria, an HIV infected child has a lifetime claim on treatment and that 67,000 infants, nine of 10 undiagnosed, will be eligible for treatment annually.” Cumulatively, 20,400 children have ever started HIV treatment in Nigeria.

The specialist who identified the need for a decisive intervention by way of the elimination of MTCT (eMTCT) agenda, said Nigeria had the the means to avert 90 percent of new infections in infants, and “’close the tap”.

Calling for decisive action, she tasked Federal government to lead a deliberate inclusive national and local consultations for action such as prioritising support for passage of the National Health Bill, and fast tracking the national take-off of the National Health Insurance Scheme (NHIS).

She argued that creative financing through existing & future funding, HIV needed to be explict in Primary Healthcare, the National Health Bill, and the NHIS packages.

She said because HIV transmission through the mother-to-child route was a “relatively invisible” epidemic at local levels and was hampering action, a readily visible grassroots-driven “pull” response was desirable.

A weaknesses of the national response was that it is “centrally” and “disease-specialist” driven which hampers the adoption of innovations such as task-shifting/sharing with non-physician-led models of service delivery.