Child Health Promotion
ADVOCATING FOR ELIMINATION OF MOTHER TO CHILD TRANSMISSION OF HIV KEEPING HIV/AIDS INFECTED AND/OR AFFECTED CHILDREN ALIVE AND IN SCHOOLS.
Tanzania has one of the highest numbers of children living with HIV to a tune of over 100,000 children whereby, over 10,000 are newly infected with HIV each year(UNAIDS 2020). The Tanzania National Guidelines for Management of HIV and AIDS, 7th Edition of April 2019 reveal that over 90% of all HIV infections in children aged below 15 years are due mother to child transmission and occur during: pregnancy, labour, delivery and breast-feeding. The rate of Mother to child transmission of HIV in Tanzania is too high to a tune of 11.12% above international benchmark of below 5%.
Some Children living with HIV fail to live positively with HIV, drop from schools due to pregnancy and AIDS and do not adhere to treatment. If the current trend continues, the Tanzania will not meet her national and international commitments to enable all children living with HIV enjoy their right to health and education.
The Children Education Society (CHESO) has established Clubs of children living with HIV in Temeke Municipal Council (Dar Es Salaam Region) and Kisarawe District (Pwani Region) and is empowering them to live positively with HIV. CHESO provides them safe spaces to these children to enable them share among themselves best practices of living with HIV. CHESO, further, provides them education needs aid, in particular, those who are at risk to drop or have dropped from schools for lack of education needs.
CHESO is a representative of the National NGOs fighting HIV, TB and Malaria Constituency in the Tanzania National Coordinating Mechanism (TNCM) for the Global Fund. CHESO empowers the National NGOs Constituency members to advocate for elimination of Mother to child transmission of HIV and takes the children and NGOs views to the TNCM and brings TNCM recommendations to the children and the National NGOs.
