North West Region: More people now freely avail themselves for HIV/Aids tests

By Njodzefe Nestor 
The acceptance rate amongst the population of the North West Region to do their HIV/AIDS test has risen to about 98% up from a discouraging percentage some years back. This remarkable success and many others are thanks to The HIV-FREE North West Project implemented by the Cameroon Baptist Convention Health Services-CBCHS for the past five years.
    The information of the success story was made public on February 16, 2016 in Bamenda at the NWRFHP Hall by the Principal Investigator, Prof. Tih Pius Muffih during an information meeting with NW stakeholders involved in the projects. 
    It also filtered out from presentations at the meeting that over 80% success rate was recorded as far as maternal treatment is concerned and that with awareness, education, sensitization of the population and the availability of ARVs, trearment rate also hit 90%.
    To this effect, Prof. Tih lauded the efforts made by stakeholders to achieve these results. The North West, he said was on the good footing as far as the HIV and AIDS pandemic is concerned adding that with option B+, there is greater hope since it is more efficient and less cumbersome to administer.
    Prof. Tih also announced at the course of the meeting that funding was now available to sustain activities in 12 districts out of 19 and in 143 sites out of the 372. The remaining districts and sites however he said would be taking care of by Global Funding through the government of Cameroon.

Marveled by the attainment of the objectives of the project, the North West Delegate of Public Health hailed prof. Tih Pius for such a “remarkable achievement.” 
    She encouraged other partners to come on board to help eradicate the pandemic while calling on the District medical Officers to take their work seriously and to make sure that they follow their operational plans. Data collection and sharing was one of the recommendations she made so that progress can be monitored and quantified.
    Despite the successes recorded in the implementation of the Project, it was not without some major challenges.
    One of the main challenges faced in the implementation according to the Principal Investigator was the fact that that a tiny fraction of the population was still reluctant to have themselves tested in order to know their status and be put on ARVs.
This he explained makes it difficult for data collection and ensuring that everyone who is positive be placed on ARVs. 
    Prof. Tih Pius added although the participation of men in the prevention of Mother to Child transmission, PMTCT increased by 10%, it was still not enough as more need to be done to make men fully involved.