WIFE of President Buhari, Aisha Buhari have asked wives of governors to champion the elimination of HIV transmission from mother to babies.
Mrs Buhari, who spoke at a high-level advocacy meeting on Maternal and Newborn Child Health (MNCH) week, in Ibadan on Monday, said they should influence actions and policies to ensure healthy mothers and children in their respective states.
Speaking through, Mrs Tessy Maina, Advocacy and Communications technical Officer, Aisha Buhari Foundation, she said accelerating the twice-yearly MNCH week was supposed to make available all services, including HIV services, required for the well being of the woman and her child.
Mrs Buhari, saying health was a developmental issue and so should be prioritised, said HIV services was already been included into maternal and child health week, adding “ it is to ensure that people who have died from HIV related are minimal and that we do not have children been born HIV positive when a woman can access HIV services.”
Chairman of Oyo State Agency for Control of AIDS and wife of Oyo State Governor, Chief Florence Ajimobi, represented by Chief Janet Adeyemo, Wife of the Deputy Governor, stated that the burden of HIV falls heavily on women and children.
Noting that half of all HIV infected people in Sub-Saharan Africa are women of reproductive age, she declared that HIV was still the leading cause of deaths among women in this age group even as 1,000 children under the age of 15 years contract HIV daily.
The HIV incidence, which she described as daunting, she said, needed the cooperation and support of all stakeholders to stem.
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She added, “we are aware that curbing mother to child transmission of HIV will go a long way in reducing the incidence of the infection and that is why we recently started engaging our traditional birth attendants as vanguards.”
National Agency for the Control of AIDS (NACA)’s representative, Dr Yinka Falola-Anoemuah stated that without the integration of HIV services into MNCH week services, Nigeria may not be able to achieve its target of eliminating mother to child transmission of HIV.
The Deputy Director, Gender, Human Rights and Care Support Services, restated that eliminating HIV transmission from mother to child is already been achieved in other countries of the world, and as such Nigeria should not be an exception.
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