Back to Annual Meeting Page		American Public Health Association 133rd Annual Meeting & Exposition December 10-14, 2005 Philadelphia, PA

Abstract #115085

Maureen Chilila, RM, MSc¹, Max Buepe, MD², Genevieve Khulu Mwale, MSc¹, and Richard S. Hughes, MA¹. (1) Zambia Country Office, JHPIEGO Corporation, 8 Ngumbo Road, Long Acres, PO Box 36873, Lusaka, Zambia, +260-1-254555, rhughes@jhpiego.net, (2) PMTCT Manager, RH Unit, Central Board of Health, Ndeke House, PO Box 32588, Lusaka, Zambia

Issues: Zambia is one of the countries hardest hit by the HIV/AIDS epidemic. According to the latest health survey, HIV prevalence is 16%, and rates among pregnant women are on the order of 20-25%. At the same time, the maternal mortality ratio is 729/100,000 live births, with equally high infant mortality (95/1,000) and under-5 mortality (168/1,000). These figures reflect not only the HIV/AIDS situation, but the high prevalence of other infectious diseases (malaria, TB, etc.), poor nutritional status, poverty, and weakness in the health care delivery system. A focus on scaling up PMTCT in the absence of other measures to protect the lives of mothers and their children is a poor investment.

Description: To prevent mother-to-child transmission of HIV, in addition to ARV prophylaxis, evidence supports direct links between various components of quality maternal and child health (MCH) services that can contribute to reducing MTCT. In Zambia, the Central Board of Health has developed an integrated strategy to expand PMTCT services in the context of strengthened maternal and child health services. It emphasizes the range of interventions that can improve maternal and neonatal survival and reduce the risks of MTCT.

Lessons Learned: This paper presents the model approach to integrating PMTCT services into MCH, together with update on successes, challenges, and lessons learned during the expansion of services using this model to-date in all nine provinces of the country.

Recommendations: PMTCT should be well integrated into strengthened MCH services, to ensure maximum impact on infant and child survival.

Learning Objectives: Participants attending this session will be able to

• Describe the integrated approach to scaling up PMTCT services in Zambia;
• Identify specific issues that arose during the initial roll-out scale-up of the integrated PMTCT package in Zambia;
• Discuss some of the specific lessons learned and strategies to prevent or address resulting issues and gaps

Keywords: Maternal and Child Health, HIV Interventions

Presenting author's disclosure statement:

I wish to disclose that I have NO financial interests or other relationship with the manufactures of commercial products, suppliers of commercial services or commercial supporters.