With support from United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), Partners for Development (PfD) implemented a 13-month program to increase the prevalence of HIV/AIDS prevention services for pregnant women, to prevent them to passing the virus on to their children in the womb. The project helped reduce mother-to-child transmission of HIV in the Ughelli North area of Nigeria by improving the availability of, access to and use of quality of HIV testing and counseling services, the provision of antiretroviral drugs, and strengthening the state’s health system response to HIV by building the capacity of 26 health facilities in area.

Through this support and with leveraged funds from Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), PfD renovated, upgraded and equipped (with modern automated equipment), the laboratory of Central Hospital Ughelli to be able to perform HIV diagnostic services; trained over 150 health care workers (doctors and nurses) to provide HIV/AIDS management services in these facilities; and worked with its partners to identify key weaknesses, and subsequently improve the way the hospitals acquired and handled sensitive testing equipment and life-saving medications. PfD also established referral linkages between the primary health facilities and the secondary facilities, as well as between skilled/traditional birth attendants and health facilities.

As a result of PfD’s UNICEF-funded interventions:

• 8,475 women received counseling and testing for HIV/AIDS
• 168 HIV+ pregnant women receiving complete course of ARV prophylaxis
• 168 women/HIV+ women received counseling and support to help them feed their infants and retain HIV- status in their children
• 157 children received ARV prophylaxis