Zero infant formula causes loss of children to HIV/AIDS

January 19, 2007

Some executive members of Rivers of Hope, a support group of people living with HIV/AIDS (PLWHA) in Rivers State have lamented endlessly over the loss of their children to HIV/AIDS as a result of lack of infant formula. The secretary of the organisation, Mrs Daebio E. (real name withheld) who disclosed this to The Tide yesterday appealed to the state government to assist HIV positive mothers for the provision of infant formula to enable their babies maintain good health. According to her, they need infant formula for their babies because breast feeding for HIV positive women carries a risk of HIV transmission and the cost of buying the infant formula is expensive, so most babies are dying not of HIV/AIDS but of inadequate feeding. “The cost of buying infant formula is excruciating and some of us have had to breast feed our babies born HIV negative because our husbands have left us and we cannot afford infant formula”, she cried. She thanked the Rivers State Government for making antiretroviral treatment free for PLWHA and for the establishment of more treatment centres in the state to decongest the Braithwaite Memorial Specialist Hospital. The secretary recalled that during the flag-of of the World AIDS Day on December 1, 2006, the Executive Governor of Rivers State did promised to provide micro soft loan for PLWHA in the state to enable them enhance their living but “till today the statement still remains a promise. Another PLWHA also said that apart from lactating HIV-positive mothers and their infected and uninfected children, HIV positive widows in the state also need to benefit under the Rivers HIV/AIDS programme with the provision of micro soft loan to set up business in order to help their families. She stressed the need for government to set up more HIV treatment centres in each local government areas so that PLWHA in the interior communities can also benefit from the centres nearest to them. However, The Tide gathered that, the Nigeria Liquedified Natural Gas (NLNG) and the Mitchehn Nigeria Limited have been of tremendous help to Rivers PLWHA in both financial and nutritional supplement, but since last year, such assistance has not been effective.