Important note: Information in this article was accurate in 2008. The state of the art may have changed since the publication date.
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New Vision (Kampala) - December 3, 2008
Moses Nampala
The countrywide programme is being run by the ministry of health through Baylor College of Medicine Children Foundation-Uganda.
Programme coordinator Dr. Patrick Bukoma said children were not getting enough anti-retroviral therapy services.
"Specialised ARV pharmaceuticals have not spelt out the dosage for children and adolescents," he said.
He was addressing senior health officers of Tororo at the district headquarters on Tuesday. He noted that ARV centres that dispense drugs to adults only improvise for children.
"Health personnel break the pills into small pieces to give to children, but often they avoid such tasks and give different doses to the children," Bukoma said.
He regretted that children and adolescents failing to access anti-retroviral therapy, caused an alarming mortality rate.
"Currently, close to 140,000 children are living with the ailment in Uganda.
Annually, about 2,500 children are infected through mother-to-child transmission," Bukoma said.
"A survey indicates that the failure to treat children had caused most of them to die of AIDS before their fifth birthday," he said.
It is from this background that the Ministry of Health through the Baylor college, embarked on efforts to open the ARV centres for children countrywide.
"This year alone, 43 accredited ARV centres for children and adolescents have been established, 36 of these in rural districts while only six are in Kampala," he said.
The programme aims at having 133 centres across the country. The Baylor foundation will provide specialised training for the health personnel and carry out clinical research on children and adolescents.
The centres, he said, will be integrated into the existing paediatric units countrywide.
Bukoma further disclosed that the accredited children and adolescent centres would gradually be provided with equipment to test for HIV in infants as young as six weeks.
In Tororo, children's anti-retroviral therapy centres are to be established at Mukujju and Nagongera health centres.
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