Improve paediatric ART care - ZNAC

By DOREEN NAWA
ZAMBIA'S National AIDS Council (NAC) has bemoaned the country’s poor paediatric anti-retroviral therapy (ART) coverage.
NAC director of programmes Harold Witola says the country has performed poorly in paediatric ART, hence the need to double the efforts.
He said this at a presentation of a research findings report on Barriers of Achieving universal access to antiretroviral therapy in Zambia at the Jesuit Centre for Theological Reflection (JCTR) in Lusaka last week.
Dr Witola said Zambia is at 35 percent coverage on ART in children below the age of 14.
This, he said, is a threat to the dream of having an HIV-free generation.
“The dream of an HIV-free generation will remain unattainable if nothing is done to double the efforts in improving the coverage of ART in children below the age of 14,” Dr Witola said.
And Dr Witola says decentralising ART to primary healthcare (PHC) centres in rural areas can decrease the burden of providing HIV services at existing facilities while increasing access to treatment.
“Due to the difficulty of following paediatric patients from diagnosis of HIV infection to ART initiation, little information is available about the care provided to HIV-infected children prior to ART initiation, hence the need to decentralise the services,” Dr Witola said.
He said HIV-infected children in rural areas have to travel long distances to access care and may have poorer weight gain when compared to those in urban areas that are accessing ART.
“Developing strategies to improve access to care and nutrition will be necessary to ensure optimal, long-term treatment outcomes for HIV-infected children countrywide,” Dr Witola said.

Meanwhile, the report has recommended the decentralisation of ART to community-based or mobile clinics to reduce the distances patients have to cover each time they need to access care and treatment.
“Decentralisation supports retention in care and reduces loss to follow-up and also aids in decongesting the health facilities, thereby reducing the burden of physicians and nurses,” the report read in part.
Recent studies have shown that of the roughly 170,000 children living with HIV in Zambia in 2011, only an estimated 30,187 were receiving ART in that year.
Ministry of Health statistics show that of the 34,000 children on treatment, it is estimated that 97 percent are below the age of five and only three percent are above that age.