Kampala 4th May, 2015:- The Inter-district Elimination of Mother to Child Transmission of HIV/AIDS (eMTCT) Peer Learning Meeting was held at Imperial Royale Hotel in Kampala. The meeting which was organized by  African Mayors’ initiative for Community action on AIDS  (AMICAALL)  was to address the problems and find solutions to improving the performance of the 25 slow-progressing districts in achieving eMTCT in Uganda.

The first Lady of the Republic of Uganda, Hon. Janet Kataha Museveni who is also the champion of eMTCT in Uganda, who was the chief guest at the closing ceremony urged district leaders to mobilize and involve communities to create awareness in order to achieve the eMTCT goals. She also said that although there are  25 lagging behind on eMTCT, the little progress made should be appreciated. The First Lady thanked the government of Uganda, Organisation of African First Ladies against AIDS (OAFLA), the United Nations family, AIDS development partners, hospitals, schools and the media for being a part of this effort. She further said that no one’s role can be underestimated in this cause.

The Minister of State for Health in charge of Primary Health Care Honourable Sarah Opendi, noted the annual reduction of new infections in babies from 28000 to 8000. She however said that this could be reduced further by  focusing  on the slow-progressing districts.

The UN    Resident Coordinator, Ms. Ahunna Eziakonwa highlighted the importance of leadership in this cause. To that effect she applauded the  district leaders in their different capacities for making effort to meet. She noted the importance of the meeting saying that it will enable participants to find solutions to the problems affecting their progress on eMTCT.

The Peer Districts eMTCT learning meeting is the basis upon which the National eMTCT response in 2015 and beyond is premised.  2015 is an important year for assessing progress made by the 22 high burden countries towards elimination of mother to child transmission. Countries are to return to the drawing board and design strategies towards achieving the elimination targets, a scenario that’ll be important for Uganda to carefully analyze its progress and review key bottlenecks that are affecting the performance of the country. Focus will therefore be put on the slow-progressing districts contributing to most new HIV infections in children. They’ll further identify actions to be taken in order to accelerate progress in Prevention of Mother to Child Transmission of HIV&AIDS (PMTCT) to achieve the elimination goals.

Role played by World Health Organisation in eMTCT

WHO continues to provide technical support, guidelines and building capacity of health workers to achieve the national eMTCT targets.

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Mwebembezi Edmond, Public Information Officer
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Below:

01. Left to right UN Agency heads, Ms. Esperance Fundira UNFPA, Mr. Musa Bungudu UNAIDS, Ms Almaz Gebru UNDP Dr. Alemu Wondimagegnehu WHO and Dr. Steven Okokwu UNICEF

02. The First Lady of Uganda Hon. Janet Museveni addressing the District representatives at the meeting.

03. UN family  Resident Coordinator Ms. Ahunna Eziakonwa speaking on behalf of the UN Agencies