Letters
Stop HIV infected mothers from breastfeeding babies
A woman breastfeeds her child
If all along we have been fighting to eliminate HIV, I don’t understand why the ministry of health insisted that HIV mothers should breastfeed their babies well aware of the risk it imposes on negatively born babies.
Today, according to reports from the ministry of health, it looks like efforts to prevent mother to child HIV transmission during pregnancy and at birth has gone to waste since it was discovered recently that many HIV negative born babies are contracting the virus through breastfeeding.
It was disclosed that many women after giving birth stop taking their ARVs due to limited access of the drugs because of transport difficultues which has increased the risks of their babies contacting HIV through breastfeeding.
I know breast milk is the best and nutritious food for babies but wasn’t it a crazy idea to encourage HIV infected mothers to continue breastfeeding their negatively born babies simply because you believe mothers on ARVs have a lower chance of infecting her babies?
Did government forget how difficult it is for an HIV infected person to embrace his/her status once they find out? How difficult it is to live positively? And while making that decision, did government even consider the evolution of the virus? How many people have gone back to change their drugs simply because the virus had turned resistant to the first drugs? Didn’t anybody think that the same could happen to the HIV infected mothers?
I would like to remind the ministry of health that Uganda is still an under developed country where poverty still rules the day. This means that the way of life of people living with HIV can easily be affected. It was therefore very inconsiderate for the ministry of health to consider breastfeeding as a good idea for HIV negative born babies and yet so many things could go wrong.
My suggestion is that HIV positive mothers should stop breastfeeding their babies hence forth to stop further calamities
I advise the ministry to stop implementing risky ideas that would put to waste our efforts of eliminating HIV/AIDS in Uganda.
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