Day 1 of the Children and HIV: Family Support First Symposium
Linda Kasonka
CEPA Country Team
The opening plenary of the Children and HIV: Family Support First Symposium was from 08:30 – 10 :00 in Vienna at the Austria Centre. The moderator Dr Natalia Kanem, president of the ELMA Philanthropies opened the session, welcomed everyone to the important pre aids conference symposium, and gave a brief of the symposium. She then introduced the first speaker Elizabeth Mwenya from the Zambian Network of people Living with HIV and AIDS to speak on behalf of the civil society. In her address Elizabeth gave a moving address of her personal experience as a person living with HIV. She told the audience that she had been living with HIV for close to 11 years and said it has not been an easy journey as she has had to do a lot of learning about the disease. She told the house that through the PPTCT programmes, she had children who are HIV negative. She told the house that she started showing symptoms in 1997 but did not have the courage to go for testing. She said her condition worsened in 1999 during her second pregnancy and the doctors advised her to go for a test and she was diagnosed to HIV positive. She underwent the PPTCT programme and had a child who is HIV negative and 11 years old now.
Elizabeth said she decided to disclose her status to help the many women who were afraid to take the bold step of going for testing and going through the PPTCT programme. She said she got a lot of support through the support group she joined and was able to mobilise a lot of other women and encourage expectant mothers to go for testing and PPTCT for those who required the service. She said the approach used in her area is to encourage both the men and women to go for testing during the antenatal visits. She said her group is involved in a lot of sensitisation through drama, door-to-door, radio etc.
She said the programme has been a success and a lot of individuals have been responding to the power of personal testimonies. As a result more women are accessing PPTCT and fewer babies are dying. She then highlighted the challenges still being faced in rural communities where she came from such as the distance barriers and well as the low literacy levels and the challenges in the infant feeding options. She ended by supporting the family centred approach as the best approach in ending paediatric HIV.
Dr Stefan Germann from the World Vision international then gave opening remarks on behalf of the Autrian first lady who could not attend due to other commitments and then called upon Mr. Michel Sidibe, Executive director of UNAIDs to give the keynote address.
Mr Sidibe welcomed everyone to the meeting and said the gathering was timely and topical. He emphasised that what was important was to achieve universal access. He told the gathering that society needs to build a society where there is no discrimination. He acknowledged that the number of children accessing medication was increasing and the PPTCT as well but said more still needs to be done to ensure zero new infection amongst children and universal access to children infected. Mr Sidibe called for the elimination of paediatric HIV by 2015. He also told the participants that integration was the magic bullet that would be cost effective and bring returns on investment. He called for the continuum of care approach, which is a family centered approach.
He ended by saying that UNAIDS was committed to
• Promoting child oriented programmes
• Assuring access to treatments for children
• Developing new treatment for children
• Strengthening economic base of family and caregiver which is critical to family centred approach.
Left to right Dr Stefan Germann- world Vision international,Dr Natalia Kanem (moderator) President, ELMA Philanthropies,Elizabeth Mwenya Network of Zambian people living with HIV and AIDS and Mr. Michel Sidibe, executive Director UNAIDS
Our awesome CEPA partner and blogger, Linda, giving the CEPA Zambia update during the CEPA Civil society dialogue meeting.