Kiambu County AIDS and STI coordinator Judy Makori has said that they have seen a reduction of HIV transmission in mother to child.
Speaking to KNA, Makori said that the prevention programme has been possible by bringing on board mentor mothers, integration of the services especially at community level and psychosocial groups that have been helpful in supporting mothers.
“Over the years we’ve been celebrating children when they turn negative at two years of age and this has been encouraging many mothers,” she said
Working among many stakeholders to eliminate HIV transmission of the mother to children is key, the coordinator said noting that they have been doing this at community level by holding awareness meetings and asking pregnant mothers to attend antenatal clinics early and get the HIV and syphilis testing which is done twice when one is pregnant.
In situations where a mother is positive, Makori said they follow up on her treatment and if there is a situation where the child turns positive, they start medication straight away and this has seen a lot of improvement in terms of virus suppression for the children.
According to 2018 Data by Kiambu County, the HIV prevalence stood at 40 per cent and high efforts have been taken by the government to strengthen systems to reduce the number of infections.
During that time Kiambu had 249,529 children under five years and 562,431 women of child bearing age (15-49) years affected by HIV virus.
According to data by the HIV/ AIDS coordination office, nationally there has been a decrease in mother to child transmissions from 12.4 per cent in 2019 to 8.3 now and in Kiambu County, the decrease was placed in a general data of the 9 Per cent decrease in the whole Central region.
By Celestine Chumba and Yvette Kimani
