Heart-to-Heart Ambassador’s Caravan to visit antenatal clinics
The 2015 Heart-to-Heart HIV Ambassador’s Caravan visits to antenatal clinics have been launched in Accra with an advice to expectant mothers not to be apprehensive when asked to check their HIV status.
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According to the ambassadors, counselling expectant mothers to check their HIV status was necessary for them to know their status in order to be put on treatment to safeguard the health of both mother and baby.
The campaign, which is a partnership between the Ghana AIDS Commission (GAC) and the Network of Associations of Persons Living with HIV (PLHIV), aims at providing a human face to the HIV and AIDS disease through open disclosure of HIV status by PLHIV and end mother-to-child transmission of HIV in Ghana.
As a result of the high stigma and discrimination experienced among persons living with HIV in the country, four HIV ambassadors known as the heart-to-heart ambassadors who are also PLHIVs will educate and interact with pregnant women as part of the campaign.
According to statistics of the GAC, the rate of positive cases of mother-to-child transmission of HIV for those who successfully went through the prevention of mother to child transmission (PMTCT) currently was seven per cent.
However, the Director-General of the GAC, Dr Angela El-Adas, underscored the need to reduce prevalence rate to less than five per cent by the end of 2015 as stated in the National Strategic Plan.
Campaign
The campaign, launched at the La General Hospital last Wednesday, as part of government’s effort to prevent mother-to-child transmission, is also to alley the fears of pregnant women to test and know their status during pregnancy to enable them receive antiretroviral treatment.
The project will begin with 14 hospitals and clinics in the Greater Accra Region, including the Korle Bu Teaching Hospital, Tema General Hospital, Mamobi Polyclinic, Ridge Hospital among others.
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Team work
Speaking on behalf of the director general of the GAC at the launch of the campaign in Accra, the Acting Director of Technical Services at the GAC, Mr Cosmos Ohene-Adjei, explained that the heart-to-heart ambassadors would team up with the dedicated health staff who provide treatment support at Antiretroviral Treatment Centres (ATC) in the Greater Accra Region.
Subsequently, he said the project would be piloted across all the other regions in the country.
Currently, he said the country had achieved 76 per cent coverage of PMTCT services for pregnant women and about 50 per cent of all who tested positive were on treatment.
He said the 2013 sentinel survey report estimated that 34,557 children were living with HIV in Ghana, and called for a more concerted effort to achieve better results.
Encourage women
Launching the campaign, the Municipal Chief Executive of the La Dadekotopon Municipal Assembly, Mrs Rita Odoley Sowah, advised the women to always be bold and get tested since that was the surest way of protecting themselves and their babies.
In an interview with the Daily Graphic, the acting midwife in charge of the antenatal clinic at the La General Hospital, Ms Constance Agbeko, said in the first quarter of this year, 1,031 pregnant women were tested and 21 tested positive to HIV.