By George Bukenya
Despite continued interventions geared towards ending new HIV infections among new born babies in Uganda, the figures of babies who acquire HIV during birth are still alarming.
This was revealed by the acting Aids Commission Director Dr. Vincent Bagqmbe in a press conference held at the State Media Centre in Kampala
As at December 2023, 4700 babies are born with HIV Aids which figure according to Dr. Bagambe are still very alarming despite several interventions and funding towards eliminating the vice by the year 2030.
The acting Commission Director attributed this to the increased number of girls and women who acquire HIV infections when already pregnant and those who start attending antenatal services late thus making high risk of transmitting the killer monster to the baby.
“The figures of babies being born with HIV Aids are still high and alarming due to mothers who default attending treatment during pregnancy or breastfeeding, this increases the viral load thus increasing the risks of transferring the HIV virus to the newly born babies,” Dr.Bagambe stated.
He however suggested in order to break the cycle, we need to keep girls in school a little bit longer, empower such young female people economically, create awareness by leaders , cultural norms should also be tailored in line to safe girls from getting infected because they are more vulnerable.
The Chairperson Uganda Aids Commission Board Canon Dr. Ruth Ssenyonyi said that lack of knowledge on the HIV Aid especially among the teenage girls has also increased risks of acquiring HIV by such young people.
He suggested that parents, guardians and teachers must talk to girls about the monster to deter young people from getting new infections
Ssenyonyi said that social media has a lot of unfiltered information consumed by the young people, therefore, she called on parents, guardians and teachers to always intervene and guide such people on the information they need to consume.
She also said that stigma is still high among the young people and this discourages them to embrace routine testing for HIV whereas some who test positive start treatment but don’t adhere to it, other change the point of receiving drugs still due to being stigmatised.
Canon Ssenyonyi also said that according to findings, government spends Ushs 700,000 per year on person living with HIV /Aids and this translates to a total of 1,043 trillion annually which money if new HIV infections are avoided can be saved and perhaps invested to boost the economy.
The UNIADS country representative Jackie Makoma said the global target of hasn’t been achieved since Uganda is still getting many new HIV infections where in 2023 there were 38,000 and out of this 15,000 where adolescent urban girls and young women in the age bracket of 15-24 years .
“This is a tragedy, despite having knowledge and tools and capacity needed to fight the monster so as to prevent this alarming new infections in Uganda, ” Makoma said.
‘’ We need to accelerate interventions to end HIV/AIDS infections by 2030. We must address the fact that deeply entrench social, religious and social norms which enforce trickle values causing gender inequalities” She said.
Makoma also said that in order to address the challenge of new infections among girls, we need to encourage communities to prioritize non judgmental comprehensive youth friendly HIV reproductive health services.
Take closure such clinical services to the youth in one location, target HIV success for male sex partners for the adolescent girls, tackle gender based violence in relation to gender inequality.
The UNIADS boss here also said Education of the girl’s child is key, especially keeping her longer in school because studies have revealed that girls who go pass secondary education and join higher institutions of learning have very less risk of acquiring HIV/Aids because can easily access health services.