“It sounds like an ambitious campaign,” said Dr Arzu Rana Deuba, chairman of the SMNF, announcing the campaign. “But, it is not impossible. We can do it.” [break]
The SMNF will carry out the campaign, which has been implemented successfully in Liberia, a West African country, jointly with Aids-Info-Docu/Nepal and Patnep Nepal with Rotary Club of Los Altos, the USA, in all 75 districts. The campaign is yet to be launched formally, though.
“Many pregnant women infected with HIV transmit the deadly virus to their newborn babies, knowingly or unknowingly, due to the lack of proper counseling and medicines,” says Dr Pushpa Bhatta, technical advisor of the SMNF and the president of Aids-Info-Docu, Nepal. “If we make it mandatory for every pregnant woman to undergo HIV test before delivery, we can provide proper counseling and medicines so that she can deliver a healthy baby.”
According to Dr Bhatta, a single dose of Nevirapine is sufficient to help a pregnant woman, infected with HIV virus, to deliver a healthy baby.
“If a pregnant woman infected with HIV virus prefers cesarean and avoids breastfeeding apart from taking a dose of Nevirapine, the chances of her having a baby free of HIV are very high,” Dr Bhatta says. “However, the newborn baby also requires medicines for sometime.”
According to National Center for AIDS and STD Control (NCASC), an estimated 55,000 people are now infected with HIV in Nepal and 28 per cent of them are women, mostly from the rural villages.
Another figure suggests that over 1,000 women with HIV/AIDS get pregnant every year and 30 to 45 per cent of them may deliver newborns with HIV virus if they do not get proper medical attention.
"If we provide proper counseling and medicines to all pregnant women infected with HIV/AIDS, we can reduce the percentage of pregnant women giving birth to babies infected with the virus to less than five," says Birendra Pradhan, a public health expert.
Sadly, the government has not implemented any program apart from Prevention of Mother to Child Transmission of HIV virus (PMTCT) so far. "The government´s program is target-oriented and therefore not sufficient," says Dr Bhatta. "We want to reach out to all pregnant women with HIV virus. Our campaign will target the general people."
As far as the funding for the campaign is concerned, Dr Bhatta says, "We have been accused of entirely depending on donors for every development program.
Therefore, we want to collect seed money from among ourselves. If every Nepali provides one rupee, we will be able to collect over Rs 10 millions. Once we have a certain amount of money, donors will wholeheartedly support our campaign."
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