| dc.description.abstract | Introduction: Vertical transmission of HIV from mother to child is the main route by which childhood HIV infection is acquired. Transmission can occur either in utero (while the child is still in the womb), during delivery or during breastfeeding. Without early initiation of ART, HIV infected infants suffer from rapid immunological deterioration, disease progression and high mortality. However, early treatment of infants using Anti-Retroviral Therapy significantly
reduces infant mortality from HIV infection. In this regard therefore, a successful Early Infant Diagnosis (EID) program is a causal part of efforts to reduce the burden of HIV disease
Objective: The overall objective was to establish factors influencing retention of HIV exposed infants enrolled in the Early Infant Diagnosis program in Buwama sub-county, Mpigi district. The specific objectives included: (1) to determine the retention rate of the HIV exposed infants enrolled for Early Infant Diagnosis in Buwama sub-county; (2) to identify the maternal factors influencing the retention of HIV exposed infants enrolled in the Early Infant Diagnosis program in Buwama sub-county; (3) to assess the Socio-economic factors influencing retention of HIV exposed infants enrolled in the Early Infant Diagnosis program
in Buwama sub-county; (4) to examine the healthy system factors affecting the retention of HIV exposed infants enrolled in the Early Infant Diagnosis program in Buwama sub-county, Mpigi district
Methodology: A cross-sectional descriptive design and a semi-structured interview questionnaire were used to collect data from 384 women living within the community of
Buwama sub-county. A univaliate analysis was then done. The distributions of the different variables was then described in terms of frequencies and percentages, and presented in form of tables and figures.
Results: Majority of the respondents ranged in the age brackets of 15-20 and 26-30 and the exposed infants who had stopped coming to the facility were in the age bracket of 6- 18months.From the different factors that were assessed to be influencing retention of care, majority of the respondents seemed to have dropped out of the program because of failure to disclose to their HIV status to the immediate people they live with (83%) among those who had not disclosed, Lack of transport (68%), failure to receive their babies’ results (55%)
among those who had not received the results and stigma (43%). Other contributing factors were; long waiting time at the facility 72% and poor health workers’ attitude towards the mothers (71%).
Conclusion: Programs focused on preventing vertical transmission need to increase their commitment to interventions that addresses retention in care of exposed infants and broaden their measure of success to reflect infants who test negative at the end of the exposure period.
This paper argues that EID is a key strategy to retaining HIV-exposed infants through the end of the exposure period, as it provides an opportunity to offer early clinical care and continuous follow up. It is imperative that maternal and child survival programs become sensitized not only to the urgency of early identification of HIV in infants and but also their retention in care.
Recommendations: The district should consider a lift up of the MCH building and partition the building into rooms that can promote privacy as the mothers receive the services since many opt not to come back for services because of lack of privacy.
The ministry of health needs to consider the issue of Human Resource for Health to cover the gap of understaffing at the facility. This will also bridge the challenge of long waiting at the facility. | en_US |
