|
|
|||
|
Family Health International |
|||
Nepal Receives Life-Saving HIV/AIDS Prevention Supplies from Abbott and Boehringer IngelheimTesting and Treatment Supplies for Prevention of Mother-to-Child Transmission Will Benefit More Than 65,000 Women and Children |
|||
|
KATHMANDU, Nepal, March 27, 2009 — Nepal's National Center for AIDS and STD Control (NCASC) this week marked in a ceremony its receipt of donations from two HIV/AIDS testing and treatment programs to benefit more than 65,000 pregnant women and their newborn children as part of the national Prevention of Mother-to-Child Transmission (PMTCT) Initiative. Nepal recently qualified to receive supplies from Abbott's PMTCT Test Donation Program and Boehringer Ingelheim's Viramune® Donation Programme (VDP). The donated supplies will be directed to Nepal's 15 existing and five planned PMTCT sites, 14 Community-based PMTCT sites and field teams supporting home deliveries. NCASC Director, Dr. Laxmi Raj Pathak stated, "Our ability to provide these important AIDS fighting tools represents a critical step in our nation's comprehensive strategy to achieve universal access to testing, care and treatment for HIV/AIDS, a difficult challenge given our terrain and long distances to affected populations. We are deeply grateful to the donors and partners for their roles in initiating and facilitating the delivery of these life-saving supplies." A mother infected with HIV has a 30 percent risk of passing the infection on to her baby. Enabling pregnant women to know their HIV status before they give birth is the first step in preventing mother-to-child transmission (PMTCT) of HIV. However, for many pregnant women living in the developing world, testing is limited because of cost, time required to receive results, and lack of trained health care staff and testing facilities. Rapid testing allows women to learn their status in 15 minutes and increases the opportunity to receive counseling after the test. "The government of Nepal should be congratulated for taking the leadership in accessing this donation program. There are many countries eligible for this, but it takes government commitment to do so." said Sara Nyanti, Chief of HIV/AIDS at UNICEF Nepal. "This will go a long way in addressing the need to take services to hard to reach high risk women and their children who are not utilizing the current district level HIV and AIDS services due to geographical and economical access problems. A part of the donation would go to strengthening of the Accham community-based PMTCT programme, where testing is done at the health post level, and women who cannot get to a hospital for delivery will now have the opportunity to get the life-saving drugs for them and their children at their homes." FHI/Nepal Country Director Jacqueline McPherson added, "These donations will make a vital difference in the lives of thousands of women and children who might not otherwise be able to be reached by testing and prevention activities. Even better, both donation programs include systems of replenishing the supplies based on their use in the national PMTCT initiative on a continuous basis and will support our efforts to prevent transmission and help those diagnosed with HIV/AIDS to maintain healthy lives." Family Health International/Nepal (FHI/Nepal), under the USAID-funded ASHA Project, had applied for the donations on behalf of NCASC. The application processes are supported by UNICEF, and Axios International and Direct Relief International managed the processes for VDP and the Abbott Program, respectively. "This is an excellent example of very positive collaboration among the government of Nepal, donors and implementing agencies resulting in the ideal public-private partnership. We encourage and would like to see more such partnerships in the future," said USAID/Nepal Director of the Office of Health and Family Planning, Anne M. Peniston. The Abbott PMTCT Rapid Test Donation Program provides Determine HIV 1/2 rapid tests for use with pregnant women, their spouses, and their children aged 18-months and older who test positive for HIV. To help pregnant women find out their HIV status, Abbott donates rapid HIV tests free of charge to qualifying programs in 69 developing countries, including all of Africa. To date, Abbott has donated more than 11 million rapid HIV tests to prevention programs throughout the developing world. Under the VDP program, Boehringer Ingelheim is donating its PMTCT agent Viramune® 200 mg and Viramune® Suspension (active ingredient nevirapine), along with NVP Pouches and oral dosing syringes. Viramune® 200 mg is taken by a HIV-positive pregnant woman during labor and Viramune® Suspension is given to a newborn within 72 hours of birth with the help of the oral dosing syringe. The NVP pouches package oral dosing syringes filled with Viramune® Suspension for home-delivered babies. Where available, Viramune® should be administered with additional antiretroviral medicine as recommended by the World Health Organization. Recent studies suggest that in women and infants previously treated with single-dose nevirapine for prevention of mother-to-child transmission of HIV-1, the efficacy of subsequent Viramune® combination therapy may be reduced. About Family Health International For more information contact: |
|||
|
|||
