15 Million People on HIV Treatment in Africa: What We Need to do to Keep This Progress Going
In case you haven’t heard the good news, there are currently 15 million people on HIV Treatment in Africa. This is a huge win for the United Nations Program on HIV and AIDS (UNAIDS) and all its partners. It’s not often we are able to celebrate a win in the Global Health Community.
Even better news has been reported: , “The UNAIDS report points out that new HIV infections have fallen by 35% and AIDS-related deaths by 41%”. It was only 15 years ago that “the world was witnessing an extraordinary number of new HIV infections where 8,500 people were becoming newly infected with the virus and 4300 people were dying of AIDS.” This all points to current health systems are improving, but we can do even more to prevent the spread of this infectious virus that rips families apart- especially in Africa.
What RGH Can Do?
The first step to prevention is to ensure that mothers are able to protect their children from contracting the virus during pregnancy. We have to ensure that mothers are able to have access to quality maternal health care and delivery and newborn care. This could be in the form of a hospital for emergency obstetric care or a well trained midwife for normal deliveries. Without having access to an inclusive health system, these children and mothers will be unable to thrive.
The second step is education. Even if we are able to ensure a child will not be infected with HIV while it’s in the womb, the second highest risk of contracting the virus is while the child is a teenager. As children grow older and wish to start families of their own, they need to be educated on how to prevent themselves from contracting HIV. If they are ever infected, they need to know where to go in order to seek HIV Treatment. This means systematically educating youths on safe sex methods and allowing them to have access to resources and the means to further educate themselves.
The last key step to preventing HIV infections is to ensure that mothers and fathers are able to receive HIV Treatment. Parents have to help support their children and one of the hardest ways do this is when they are ill. Things like the common cold and pneumonia are very dangerous for a person already infected with HIV. If parents are unable to take care of their children, healthcare providers will have to work to support both the sick parent, and the child.
Realizing Global Health has been implementing integrated training programs to improve the effectiveness of HIV treatment programs not just in Africa, but all over the world to help us all live longer, healthier lives. HIV prevention needs to be scaled up worldwide and be provided systematically to everyone everywhere everyday if we are achieve an AIDS free generation.
