Many people have asked me about the HIV/AIDS situation in Mvuma. Here are some statistics about Zimbabwe from the CDC's Global AIDS Program website.
• Between one-fourth and one one-third of all adults are infected with HIV.
• In the past decade, life expectancy declined almost a quarter century from 63 to 39 years.
• By 2010, more than 35% of all living children are expected to be AIDS orphans.
The good news is that Dr. S and the hospital in Mvuma have implemented a Mother to Child Transmission Prevention Program and have had success.
If you haven't taken a look at the Stoughton's July 2003 Newsletter on the MDA website, here is an exerpt:
We have been involved in a "Mother To Child Transmission" (MTCT) prevention program for nine months now. It involves educating pregnant mothers(and their husbands) about the need for the mother to have an HIV test to see if she is positive or negative. If positive, then we make sure that she delivers here. She gets an anti-retroviral agent during labor, and the baby gets a dose soon after delivery. We then carefully instruct the mother in proper breast feeding technique, and also that she does NOT give supplemental feeds of any other foods for the first six months. We follow both mother and baby closely after discharge, and at five months we do an HIV test on the baby. If it is negative, then we have the mother stop breast feeding, and instruct on what other foods to now feed the baby. By doing this, it is hopeful that we will decrease the transmission of the HIV virus from about 50% when the baby is six months old, to around 10 to 15%.
About 75% or more of our mothers are electing to be tested. Of those tested, we have about a 30% positive HIV rate. So far, of the first nine babies that we tested at five months, none of them were HIV positive. When I heard that news, it sent a shiver up my spine. At last, we have something that we can do to prevent this terrible disease.
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