Ministry Of Health's HIV Department along with SIPPA together with the Save the Children, Australia facilitated a three day workshop on HIV which ended today.
The aim of the workshop was to review the first draft of "The Prevention of Mother to Child Transmission(PMCT)of HIV and STI" Policy which was drafted on the 16th -18th June this year. The Policy only focuses on Mothers and children.Mrs. Joyce Gumi, a participant from the health division, informed Solomon Times that in the Policy, four points are of target:
1.Defect mothers with HIV and mothers who are HIV negative and ways mothers could protect themselves from getting infected.
2.Prevention of HIV positive women falling pregnant to avoid further transmission.
3.Prevention of HIV Infected Mothers transmission through breast feeding.
4.Treatment Care and Support services for Mothers living with HIV, their Babies with their Families, looking at availability and accessibility of treatment.
Also discussed was the continuous rise in HIV cases. The number of HIV infected people documented currently stands at 11.
"According to a survey that we did from this training we found out that those who are at high risk for getting HIV are the youths. Not only are they ignorant but they engage in risky sexual behavior. Although, 11 may seem like a small number, there may be a lot more infected people in the country," says Mrs. Gumi.
Nurses from various Provinces like Malaita, Makira, Western, and Guadalcanal attended the workshop which closes today.