EMPOWERMENT OF CHILDREN ADOLESCENTS AND YOUNG MOTHERS, INTO HIV NEGATIVE LIVING AND INCREASED DEMEMD FOR PMTCT SERVICES IN KAMULI .

 HIV/AIDS is one of the most challenging threat to public health worldwide with about 36.9 million people living with HIV. The epidemic has evolved disastrously, moving from high-risk groups to general populations in some of the world’s most populated and poorest countries with Eastern and South Africa accounting for 45% of the world’s HIV infections and 53% of people living with HIV globally (UNAIDS data))2018. About 83,000 contracted the HIV in 2016 (227 infections per day and 9 infections per hour), while 28,000 died of HIV related illness in the same year (77 deaths per day).There were 50,000 new infections in all ages in 2017 and Currently, there are about 1.3 million Ugandans living with HIV of which 57.7% are women aged 15+ (UNAIDS data 2018). 

This has affected mostly the children, adolescents and young women. Every year 9,600 young people aged 15-19 years are newly infected with HIV yet they constitute almost 34.8% of Uganda’s 34.6 million population. About 10% of the sexually active adolescents aged 15-19 years have had their first sexual encounter before age 15. Girls are infected most with over 66% of all the new HIV infections being concentrated among adolescent girls. As a result of such early sexual encounters, one in four teenage girls in Uganda age 15-19 have had a child or are pregnant with about  42% of all the pregnancies among adolescents in Uganda are unintended. Such risks create young mothers age 20-24 of which  10% marry by age 15 and only 40% of women age 20-24 married by age 18(UNFP,Uganda, WITH YOU(TH).) This is due to early involvement in risky behaviors, poverty, failure to get tested and counselled, lack of knowledge, stigma, discrimination,  failure to disclose, inadequate access to services,,lack of sexual reproductive health services and cultural barriers/norms

The loss to follow up on those with HIV has further hampered efforts to eliminate transmission of mother to child transmission of HIV/AIDS, Many women do not attend the mandatory ANC Visits, and thus do not get PMTCT and pediatric services. .  Such compromises their own heath and for the children and long term success of ART and in most case lead to death. This is due to failure to attend fully the recommended Four ANC sessions, distance to health facilities, poor nutrition status, low men inolvement, adverse drug reactions, and inaccessibility to services. Not having a committed partner, and failure to disclose. This worsened by the poor monitoring system by the health service providers on retention of clients and poor linkage between PMCT services with other STI management . Despite the governments intervention to address the above problems, less has been realized to counter HIV prevention and reduce loss to follow up as observed by the above indicators. The project thus aims at reducing loss to follow up and Reduce HIV infections among the children, adolescents and young women