Helping Families Maintain Healthy Lives

APRIL 2009 — Family Health International recently secured HIV testing and treatment supplies for the Nepal National Prevention of Mother to Child Transmission (PMTCT) Program under the National Center for AIDS and STD Control (NCASC).  These supplies will benefit more than 65,000 pregnant women and their newborn children.

FHI/Nepal, funded by USAID, provides technical assistance to the NCASC National HIV Logistics Program and the National PMTCT Program.  FHI/Nepal applied for these  lifesaving supplies at the request of and on behalf of the NCASC and the Logistics Task Force.  The supplies, provided by Abbott's Rapid HIV Test Donation Program and Boehringer Ingelheim's Viramune Donation Programme, will be distributed among Nepal's 15 existing and five planned hospital-based PMTCT sites, 14 community-based PMTCT sites, and field teams supporting home deliveries. The management of these important donation programs will transition to the NCASC over the coming year.

"Our ability to provide these important supplies 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," says NCASC Director Dr. Laxmi Raj Pathak.

Making a Vital Difference
A mother infected with HIV has a 30 percent risk of passing on the infection to her baby. Enabling pregnant women to know their HIV status before they give birth is the first step in PMTCT, but for many pregnant women in the developing world, testing is limited because of cost, time required to receive results, and lack of trained healthcare staff and testing facilities. Rapid testing allows women to learn their status in 15 minutes and makes it easier for them to receive counseling after the test.

The Abbott donation program provides Determine HIV 1/2 rapid tests for use with pregnant women, their spouses, and their children ages 18 months and older who test positive for HIV. Boehringer Ingelheim donates its PMTCT agent Viramune® 200 mg and Viramune® Suspension, along with NVP pouches and oral dosing syringes. Viramune 200 mg is taken by HIV-positive pregnant women during labor and Viramune® Suspension is given to a newborn within 72 hours of birth. The NVP pouches package oral dosing syringes filled with Viramune Suspension for home-delivered babies.

"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," says FHI/Nepal Country Director Jacqueline McPherson. "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."

PHOTO: Samples of supplies donated by Abbott and Boehringer Ingelheim. (FHI/Nepal)