NewMagic? HIV positive mum, but HIV negative baby

Despite being largely preventable, mother-to-child transmission of HIV accounts for 30 percent of all new infections in Malawi and is the second major mode of transmission after unprotected sex. But as BRIAN LIGOMEKA writes with several therapies available in clinics, HIV positive mothers now have the choice of delivering babies who are HIV negative.

While some people living with HIV are victims of self-stigmatisation and worry in Southern Africa’s nation of Malawi, 30-year-old Eliza Malanzo of Chikoja Village in Southern Malawi is a happy mother despite being HIV positive.

“I know I am HIV positive but that does not prevent me from being one of the happiest women in this village,” she says.
Eliza failed to hold back her tears of joy when in an interview she recounted how she managed to deliver an HIV negative baby despite her being HIV positive status.

According to Eliza, when she fell pregnant, she never bothered to go to hospital because she knew that traditional health attendants would help her deliver as had been the case with all her elder sisters. She however changed her plans later.

“I was forced to go to the hospital during the second month of my pregnancy. This was after I had developed persistent coughing, recurrent fever, chronic diarrhoea and skin rashes,” she said, adding: “When I was diagnosed HIV positive, I suggested that I should have an abortion for the fear that of transmitting the virus to the innocent baby, but I was told that it was illegal for me to have an abortion according to the country’s laws,” she explained.

Eliza disclosed that it was during the post-HIV testing counselling that she learnt of Prevention of HIV from Mother to Child Transmission (PMTCT) through the use of a combination of drugs.

“I accepted what was suggested to me, but honestly speaking I never believed that an HIV positive woman could deliver an HIV negative baby. I had never heard of such magic and as a matter of fact to me the whole concept of PMTCT was just a question of trial and error.

“I am now a very happy mother now because I delivered a very healthy baby who has been tested three times and all the tests have shown that my baby is HIV negative,” she explained beaming with happiness.

Eliza is a lucky mother considering the fact that although mother-to-child transmission of HIV is preventable, courtesy of available drugs such as nevirapine, zidovudine, didanosine and tenofovir, up to 30,000 babies in the country are still born with HIV.

According National Coordinator for PMCT, Michael Elia, government and other stakeholders in the health sector are executing various initiatives and interventions to make sure that all HIV positive pregnant women can smile like Eliza after delivering healthy babies.

“We have intensified our efforts in the administering of nevirapine and other drugs to pregnant women who are HIV positive. Nowadays those who are diagnosed with the virus are offered the opportunity to access nevirapine to prevent the transmission of the virus to the unborn babies,” he said.

According to Secretary for Nutrition and HIV/Aids, Dr Mary Shawa, by October 2007, over 160, 000 pregnant mothers had been tested for HIV and 13 percent of them were found positive.
She says nevirapine was administered to most pregnant women and the therapy was also extended to the babies after they are born,” she said.

The Ministry of Health is currently encouraging all pregnant women to go for HIV Voluntary Counselling and Testing (VCT) so as to safeguard their lives and that of their unborn babies. It is in that vein that government has formulated a bill, and plans to table a controversial bill in Parliament which would require pregnant women to undergo mandatory HIV testing. The proponents of the bill including Shawa have very good reasons for the introduction of such legislation, which is to reduce mother-to-child transmission, and on the other hand opponents of the proposed bill have also their own good grounds for opposing it. Their principal ground for opposing the proposed legislation is that it violates women’s rights to self-determination, privacy and confidentiality. It, however, seems that those against mandatory testing by concentrating on the rights of women, disregard the rights of the unborn baby.

The good news is that though some people are opposed to mandatory testing, the initiative is not completely far away from the current practice which is to routinely test pregnant women who attend antenatal clinics, unless they specifically ask not to be. The proponents of mandatory HIV testing for pregnant women are justified because without such intervention, the risk of such women passing on the virus to her baby is between 30 percent and 35 percent.

Although the issue of mandatory testing of pregnant women is under discussion while the routine tests are going on, the administration of nevirapine to willing mothers in most parts of the country is going on smoothly and improvements are being made. The sweet news is that in many clinics, health workers have already switched from a single dose nevirapine regimen to the more effective and WHO-recommended triple combination of antiretroviral therapy drugs to prevent mother-to-child HIV transmission. Currently, over 500 clinics are providing maternal services that offer PMTCT and government needs a pat on the back as it hopes to roll out the programme to all clinics by the end of this year.

Perhaps the question is: What problems are PMTCT facing?
According to Zomba-based Dignitas International, low male participation in the programme is one of the hurdles. The organisation’s head of mission Veronica Van Dam was recently quoted as saying that lack of interest by men in the programme was derailing efforts to scale it up.

“For effective PMTCT, the couple needs HIV Testing and Counselling so that the men should understand why women ought to be tested for HIV,” said Van Dam.

She said men needed civic education to appreciate the importance of testing their pregnant wives so that the unborn children are spared from HIV.

Eliza concurs with Van Dam on the importance of male participation in PMTCT. She says that when she was diagnosed HIV positive she urged her husband to go for VCT and her cooperation paid dividends.

“When I was told that I am HIV positive, my husband could not believe it. At first he was mad about it until I convinced him that he should go for VCT. He went for VCT and was found positive. He was not immediately put on ARVs because his immunity was still strong, but we were advised as a couple to be using condoms when having sex as I was on nevirapine,” she said.

Eliza said as a couple they followed all the pieces of advice they received from the hospital to the letter and the outcome was that she delivered a healthy baby.

“But delivering a healthy baby was not the end of the matter because the next challenge I faced was how to look after the baby as I was advised not to breastfeed my baby,” narrated Eliza.

She said the next step was to look for alternatives for breastfeeding and she now admits that safe infant feeding is one of the most complex aspects of MTCT prevention especially in a poor African country like Malawi where acceptable alternatives to breastfeeding are limited.

“I am happy that as a family, we managed to feed our baby formulas such as Lactogen and soy from shops. We also used to supplement such formulas milk from our own cows and goats,” she explained.

She said as a family, they were using the formulas to avoid transmission of HIV to the baby through breastfeeding. Eliza and her husband were just right as statistics from the Ministry of Health indicates that 10-20 percent of babies born without getting HIV from their mothers during breastfeeding.

Though HIV positive, Eliza has indeed every good reason to be happy because in her village it has never been heard of a woman living with HIV delivering an HIV negative baby. Actually, if all pregnant HIV positive women and their spouses can walk in the footsteps of Eliza, surely Malawi will register success story in PMCT as is the case with countries such as Botswana which has lowered the rate of mother-to-child transmission of HIV to less than four percent, coming close to developed countries that have almost eliminated paediatric Aids.

But if a village woman like Eliza can do it, why not the rest of the women countrywide. The question is why not? With various partnerships like the one which the National Media Institute of Southern Africa (Namisa) has forged with the United Nations Children’s Fund (Unicef) to promote PMTCT, surely many pregnant women who are living with HIV can deliver health babies.

“PMTCT might sound like new magic in Africa, but it’s a workable possibility,” concludes Eliza.

New magic? HIV+ mum, but HIV negative baby

Despite being largely preventable, mother-to-child transmission of HIV accounts for 30 percent of all new infections in Malawi and is the second major mode of transmission after unprotected sex. But as BRIAN LIGOMEKA writes with several therapies available in clinics, HIV positive mothers now have the choice of delivering babies who are HIV negative. While some people living with HIV are victims of self-stigmatisation and worry in Southern Africa’s nation of Malawi, 30-year-old Eliza Malanzo of Chikoja Village in Southern Malawi is a happy mother despite being HIV positive.  “I know I am HIV positive but that does not prevent me from being one of the happiest women in this village,” she says.Eliza failed to hold back her tears of joy when in an interview she recounted how she managed to deliver an HIV negative baby despite her being HIV positive status. According to Eliza, when she fell pregnant, she never bothered to go to hospital because she knew that traditional health attendants would help her deliver as had been the case with all her elder sisters. She however changed her plans later.  “I was forced to go to the hospital during the second month of my pregnancy. This was after I had developed persistent coughing, recurrent fever, chronic diarrhoea and skin rashes,” she said, adding: “When I was diagnosed HIV positive, I suggested that I should have an abortion for the fear that of transmitting the virus to the innocent baby, but I was told that it was illegal for me to have an abortion according to the country’s laws,” she explained.  Eliza disclosed that it was during the post-HIV testing counselling that she learnt of Prevention of HIV from Mother to Child Transmission (PMTCT) through the use of a combination of drugs.  “I accepted what was suggested to me, but honestly speaking I never believed that an HIV positive woman could deliver an HIV negative baby. I had never heard of such magic and as a matter of fact to me the whole concept of PMTCT was just a question of trial and error. “I am now a very happy mother now because I delivered a very healthy baby who has been tested three times and all the tests have shown that my baby is HIV negative,” she explained beaming with happiness.  Eliza is a lucky mother considering the fact that although mother-to-child transmission of HIV is preventable, courtesy of available drugs such as nevirapine, zidovudine, didanosine and tenofovir, up to 30,000 babies in the country are still born with HIV. According National Coordinator for PMCT, Michael Elia, government and other stakeholders in the health sector are executing various initiatives and interventions to make sure that all HIV positive pregnant women can smile like Eliza after delivering healthy babies.  “We have intensified our efforts in the administering of nevirapine and other drugs to pregnant women who are HIV positive. Nowadays those who are diagnosed with the virus are offered the opportunity to access nevirapine to prevent the transmission of the virus to the unborn babies,” he said. According to Secretary for Nutrition and HIV/Aids, Dr Mary Shawa, by October 2007, over 160, 000 pregnant mothers had been tested for HIV and 13 percent of them were found positive.She says nevirapine was administered to most pregnant women and the therapy was also extended to the babies after they are born,” she said. The Ministry of Health is currently encouraging all pregnant women to go for HIV Voluntary Counselling and Testing (VCT) so as to safeguard their lives and that of their unborn babies.  It is in that vein that government has formulated a bill, and plans to table a controversial bill in Parliament which would require pregnant women to undergo mandatory HIV testing. The proponents of the bill including Shawa have very good reasons for the introduction of such legislation, which is to reduce mother-to-child transmission, and on the other hand opponents of the proposed bill have also their own good grounds for opposing it. Their principal ground for opposing the proposed legislation is that it violates women’s rights to self-determination, privacy and confidentiality. It, however, seems that those against mandatory testing by concentrating on the rights of women, disregard the rights of the unborn baby. The good news is that though some people are opposed to mandatory testing, the initiative is not completely far away from the current practice which is to routinely test pregnant women who attend antenatal clinics, unless they specifically ask not to be.  The proponents of mandatory HIV testing for pregnant women are justified because without such intervention, the risk of such women passing on the virus to her baby is between 30 percent and 35 percent. Although the issue of mandatory testing of pregnant women is under discussion while the routine tests are going on, the administration of nevirapine to willing mothers in most parts of the country is going on smoothly and improvements are being made. The sweet news is that in many clinics, health workers have already switched from a single dose nevirapine regimen to the more effective and WHO-recommended triple combination of antiretroviral therapy drugs to prevent mother-to-child HIV transmission. Currently, over 500 clinics are providing maternal services that offer PMTCT and government needs a pat on the back as it hopes to roll out the programme to all clinics by the end of this year. Perhaps the question is: What problems are PMTCT facing?According to Zomba-based Dignitas International, low male participation in the programme is one of the hurdles. The organisation’s head of mission Veronica Van Dam was recently quoted as saying that lack of interest by men in the programme was derailing efforts to scale it up.  “For effective PMTCT, the couple needs HIV Testing and Counselling so that the men should understand why women ought to be tested for HIV,” said Van Dam. She said men needed civic education to appreciate the importance of testing their pregnant wives so that the unborn children are spared from HIV. Eliza concurs with Van Dam on the importance of male participation in PMTCT. She says that when she was diagnosed HIV positive she urged her husband to go for VCT and her cooperation paid dividends.  “When I was told that I am HIV positive, my husband could not believe it. At first he was mad about it until I convinced him that he should go for VCT. He went for VCT and was found positive. He was not immediately put on ARVs because his immunity was still strong, but we were advised as a couple to be using condoms when having sex as I was on nevirapine,” she said. Eliza said as a couple they followed all the pieces of advice they received from the hospital to the letter and the outcome was that she delivered a healthy baby. “But delivering a healthy baby was not the end of the matter because the next challenge I faced was how to look after the baby as I was advised not to breastfeed my baby,” narrated Eliza. She said the next step was to look for alternatives for breastfeeding and she now admits that safe infant feeding is one of the most complex aspects of MTCT prevention especially in a poor African country like Malawi where acceptable alternatives to breastfeeding are limited. “I am happy that as a family, we managed to feed our baby formulas such as Lactogen and soy from shops. We also used to supplement such formulas milk from our own cows and goats,” she explained. She said as a family, they were using the formulas to avoid transmission of HIV to the baby through breastfeeding. Eliza and her husband were just right as statistics from the Ministry of Health indicates that 10-20 percent of babies born without getting HIV from their mothers during breastfeeding.  Though HIV positive, Eliza has indeed every good reason to be happy because in her village it has never been heard of a woman living with HIV delivering an HIV negative baby. Actually, if all pregnant HIV positive women and their spouses can walk in the footsteps of Eliza, surely Malawi will register success story in PMCT as is the case with countries such as Botswana which has lowered the rate of mother-to-child transmission of HIV to less than four percent, coming close to developed countries that have almost eliminated paediatric Aids. But if a village woman like Eliza can do it, why not the rest of the women countrywide. The question is why not? With various partnerships like the one which the National Media Institute of Southern Africa (Namisa) has forged with the United Nations Children’s Fund (Unicef) to promote PMTCT, surely many pregnant women who are living with HIV can deliver health babies.  “PMTCT might sound like new magic in Africa, but it’s a workable possibility,” concludes Eliza.

China dangles US$6 billion to Malawi in a cheque-book diplomatic tactic

BY OUR STAFF WRITER

BLANTYRE – In a typical cheque-book diplomatic style, Mainland (Communist) China has offered Malawi US$6 billion to severe its diplomatic ties with Taiwan.

To order this story e-mail: standardmedia2003@yahoo.co.uk

Africa is rich enough to eliminate its poverty

BY BINGU WA MUTHARIKA
Malawi’s State President

Africa is not a poor continent. Rather it is the people who are. The continent has the largest world deposits of diamonds, gold, coal, copper and manganese. It has large deposits of minerals, huge reserves of crude oil and natural gas and vast forests, fisheries and land for agriculture and cattle ranching.

Africans rank among the poorest in the world in the midst of plenty for three main reasons. First, since the early days of colonialism, there has been incessant plunder and exploitation of Africa’s resources by the developed world to the detriment of economic development in Africa.

Second, there is deliberate marginalisation of Africa in global financing, foreign direct investment and access to science and technological innovation that could have created new wealth for Africa.

In other words, African resources do not create new wealth or employment in Africa because they are not processed on the continent but are shipped to the industrialised countries in raw form.

And finally, most African governments have, so far, not taken concrete action to ensure that we change globalisation system in our favour.

We have not developed home grown strategies to deal with our specific situations. In most cases, we have depended on “surrogate economists” to advise us and ended up with wrong diagnoses, wrong prescriptions and hence wrong results.

Africa must agree on economic strategies and technological innovations that are tailored to respond to the challenges of poverty alleviation and help to bridge the “technology divide” between industrialised and developing nations.

These measures must prevent the existence of extreme poverty amidst abundant wealth; hunger and malnutrition amidst food surpluses; diseases and death amidst breakthroughs in medical and health sciences; and ignorance amidst phenomenal advancements in information and communications technology.

Malawi is responding to the challenge of poverty through a variety of measures including implementing its home grown strategies and taking full ownership of its economy and destiny.

During the past three years, Malawi has beaten all odds and introduced its own “Green Revolution”. It has implemented a successful agricultural subsidy programme that enabled the country to move from chronic food shortages, famine and malnutrition, to huge food surpluses.

As a result, Malawi has independently been rated among the 12 best managed countries in Africa.

The country has also moved from rampant corruption to a well-managed economy with a high rate of economic growth; and it has empowered the poor urban and rural communities through affordable loans and public works programmes.

Malawi is meeting the challenge of poverty eradication through the Malawi Growth and Development Strategy (MGDS) that aims to provide a new window of opportunity for the Government, the private sector and the donor community, to combine forces towards achieving sustainable economic growth and to alleviate poverty.

The Government has also decided to have a holistic policy framework that combines the management of consumption and public expenditure with a sound structure of production, manufacturing and income generation.

This not only takes care of the supply side of the economy through application of new technologies, but also changes the colonial economic framework under which we “produced what we did not consume and consumed what we did not produce”.

The Government has decided that to effectively reduce poverty, the Malawi economy must grow at a minimum annual rate of six per cent.

To achieve this, the MGDS has six key “priorities within priorities” that we know can pull the country out of the “poverty trap”.

The index has (1) agriculture and food security; (2) irrigation and water development; (3) transport and communications infrastructure; (4) energy and power development; (5) integrated rural development; and (6) management and prevention of HIV/Aids pandemic. We have also placed high priority on public health and education, especially science and technology.

We have given priority to investment in physical and social infrastructures such as roads, energy, telephone and communication networks, public health, education…to increase industrial production, manufacturing and trade.

As an integral part of this strategy, we have in place the Public Sector Investment Programme (PSIP) that aims to create a favourable and enabling environment for local enterprises to invest and create new wealth for FDI to flow into Malawi.

SMS FEATURES TO BE RELEASED ON MONDAY DEC 10, 2007

STANDARD MEDIA SERVICES
P.O. Box 30271, Chichiri, Blantyre 3, Malawi
E-mail : standardmedia2003@yahoo.co.uk
Weblog : www.standardmedia2003.wordpress.com

SMS FEATURES TO BE RELEASED ON MONDAY DEC 10, 2007

1. FEATURE ON TECHNOLOGY

Phone company creates borderless mobile network

One of the leading mobile phone providers in Africa Celtel International has given a huge boost to telecommunication industry in Africa by connecting 400 million people across 12 countries on the continent in one borderless mobile network.

2. FEATURE ON ENVIRONMENT

Malawi fights back against climate change effects

Malawi’s success story in the attainment of food security and surplus bumper harvest, courtesy of government’s subsidised fertiliser programme is just fluke as the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) in its 2007/2008 Human Development Report tells both how climate change paints a bleak picture for Malawi.

3. FEATURE ON BUSINESS

Zimbabwe’s woes, good news for Malawi

Malawi is one country in Southern Africa, which is secretly smiling and cashing on because of the current economic problems dogging Zimbabwe. Courtesy of the problems in Zimbabwe, Malawi is diversifying its agricultural and manufacturing industries. Apart from wooing more tobacco foreign buyers and exporting maize to Zimbabwe, companies in Malawi are also cashing on Zimbabwe’s economic crisis

4. NEWS STORY ON LIFESTYLE

Madonna is nice and kind, says Malawi Government

(News Story with quotes from the biological father of Madonna’s adopted child and pictures also available)

Malawi government has hailed international pop star Madonna for demonstrating that she is both a kind parent and has the welfare of orphaned children at heart.

5. NEWS STORY ON MIGRATION

Over 100,000 Zimbabweans flee to Malawi

With Zimbabwe facing chronic food shortages and inflation pegged at almost 8,000 percent, over 100000 Zimbabweans have fled to Malawi in search for food, employment and peace.
But the Zimbabweans are not welcome in Malawi.

6. FEATURE ON ENERGY

Malawi turns to bio-fuels for its motor industry

The ever-increasing price of petroleum products has forced Malawi to turn to bio-fuels for its motor industry.

Make your choice now by ordering these stories from standardmedia2003@yahoo.co.uk

STANDARD MEDIA SERVICES HISTORY

HISTORY Standard Media Services was established on August 4, 2003 and is duly registered with the Malawi Government under the Business Incorporation Act (CAP 46:02) Certificate 70356.

It is based in Malawi’s commercial city of Blantyre but works and supports clients beyond the borders of Malawi. Individuals, institutions and charities in Malawi and in other corners and outside of the African continent are also benefiting from our services.  

 Are you in need of stories from Malawi?   Are you a news editor or a producer? Are you looking for high quality news item from Malawi for publication, research or mere perusal? Are you perhaps looking for a journalist to write a good story for your publication or radio? Are you looking for photographs or radio documentaries on any issue from Malawi? If your answer is yes, don’t hesitate. Read on.   Welcome to Standards Media Services blog whose headquarters is in Blantyre, the commercial city of Southern Africa’s nation of Malawi. At Standard Media Services, we deal with the business of producing innovative media products be it news articles for print and electronic media or documentaries for radio and TV. We also offer other services as outlined below. Our success comes from a proven track record and our commitment is to our clients who we believe should get our attention and best services.  We are experts in tailoring the media products to your satisfaction. As Brian Ligomeka, owner and Managing Director of Standard Services always insists, “any organisation, which fail to meet the needs of its clients should be out of business,” we are happy to say that we tailor our products to the satisfaction of our customers.

STANDARD MEDIA SERVICES

Are you in need of stories from Malawi?

Are you a news editor or a producer? Are you looking for high quality news item from Malawi for publication, research or mere perusal? Are you perhaps looking for a journalist to write a good story for your publication or radio? Are you looking for photographs or radio documentaries on any issue from Malawi? If your answer is yes, don’t hesitate. Read on.

Welcome to Standards Media Services blog whose headquarters is in Blantyre, the commercial city of Southern Africa’s nation of Malawi. At Standard Media Services, we deal with the business of producing innovative media products be it news articles for print and electronic media or documentaries for radio and TV. We also offer other services as outlined below. Our success comes from a proven track record and our commitment is to our clients who we believe should get our attention and best services.

We are experts in tailoring the media products to your satisfaction. As Brian Ligomeka, owner and Managing Director of Standard Services always insists, “any organisation, which fail to meet the needs of its clients should be out of business,” we are happy to say that we tailor our products to the satisfaction of our customers.