Irene ObieroCreating Pediatric Aids Policy in Africa
In these past weeks, the mood has been a bit despondent at the office. It almost seems as if CHAI is fighting a losing battle against HIV infections in children. Although new HIV positive children are recruited almost daily into care and treatment, an almost equal number of children are defaulting from taking their medication, putting them at risk of an early death, without this medication as well as making them almost certainly develop resistance to the drugs if they can ever be traced. This is the news we have been grappling with, these past weeks. And the lingering question in our collective minds is whether we really know the extent to which this infection has ravaged the lives of children all around Kenya.
After working in Maragua (in Central Kenya) where we found that a large number of HIV positive children stop coming to the clinic, we have started moving around different hospitals in Kenya to see how many children are lost to follow-up and the numbers are scary. The problem is not even the children, but their parents and caregivers who are many times reluctant to take them to the clinic for various reasons, some valid and some that just stem from irresponsibility. It just seems as if we need more resources to manage the issues around paediatric AIDS.
Journal 2:
In these past weeks, the mood has been a bit despondent at the office. It almost seems as if CHAI is fighting a losing battle against HIV infections in children. Although new HIV positive children are recruited almost daily into care and treatment, an almost equal number of children are defaulting from taking their medication, putting them at risk of an early death without this medication as well as making them almost certainly develop resistance to the drugs if they can ever be traced. These are the issues we have been grappling with, over these past weeks. And the lingering question in our collective minds is whether we really know the extent to which this infection has ravaged the lives of children all around Kenya.
After working in Maragua (in Central Kenya) where we found that a large number of HIV positive children stop coming to the clinic, we have started moving around to different hospitals in Kenya to see how many children are lost to follow-up and the numbers are scary. The problem is not the children, but their parents and caregivers who are many times reluctant to take them to the clinic for various reasons, some valid and some that just stem from irresponsibility. It’s clear that even with CHAI and all of our work; we need more resources to manage the issues around pediatric AIDS.
Journal 3:
In September, the Kenyan government released results of a study conducted over the course of last year indicating that the prevalence of HIV infections in the country had been previously underestimated, and that rather than going down, the rate of new infections is rapidly increasing. With this shocking news, CHAI is beginning to evaluate its proposals across all projects because as the report says, the drug burden is going to worsen in the coming months.
Some of the interventions we’ll be working on will include the following:
- Creation of media campaigns with a more aggressive message targeting men over 45 years old who are said to be the worst hit group as far as new infections.
- Work with hospitals to ensure proper documentation of all their cases which impacts the procuring of ARVs nationally.
- Work with pregnant women to ensure that they give birth to HIV negative children and assist them in the procuring of infant formula to prevent HIV transmission between mother and child after birth.
Overall, despite the limited resources in responding to HIV/AIDS, my summer fellowship led to great personal experiences. The CHAI team in Kenya was extremely friendly and professional and included me in all projects that they were working on, by the time I arrived. They also involved me in extremely high level policy meetings with other partners in the HIV space. By the end of the summer, I had been exposed to a lot of interesting work, and could see firsthand the implementations of policies that had been proposed in meetings. Since CHAI does not pay its interns, of course it was good to have the fellowship. My experience was so strong I like to think I would still have accepted this offer, even without the benefit of the fellowship.
