Change messages for HIV

By Charles Wendo A Ugandan epidemiologist yesterday called for new approaches to primary HIV/AIDS prevention as a means to prevent mother-to-child HIV transmission. Dr. Fred Wabwire-Mangen, director of the Institute of Public Health, Makerere University was speaking at the just ended conference on global strategies for prevention of HIV transmission from mothers to infants in Kampala. He said that the old HIV/AIDS messages helped reduce infection rates in general. However, he said, the old messages developed in the 1990s are no longer sufficient. Addressing the plenary, Wabwire-Mangen said a new generation of messages need to be developed by adding new information to the old messages. In addition, he said, the gap between knowledge and practice needs to be reduced. Citing a study in a rural area of Uganda, Wabwire-Mangen said that whereas almost every Ugandan knows that HIV is transmitted through sex, only a small proportion is aware of mother-to-child HIV transmission. This is presumably because the old messages concentrated on sex as the main method of HIV transmission, counselling and testing, abstinence and safer sex including condom use, without addressing challenges like mother to child transmission. He said the new generation of messages should include mother-to-child HIV transmission, anti-retroviral drugs, infant feeding options, couple testing and discordance as well as safer sex. This should target women in the child-bearing age group of 15 - 49. He said a study in Rakai district of Uganda had indicated that women are more afraid than men to get their HIV results. “Clearly we need to do something about the fear of women coming for their results, which fear is associated with domestic violence,” he said. ends