First Central Facilitative Supervision on PMTCT Cohort Monitoring in SW
The HIV Free Project Senior Supervisor for Family Planning and Prevention of Mother to Child Transmission (PMTCT) Services, Dr. Florence Tumasang has embarked on a two-day facilitative supervision on PMTCT cohort monitoring in some facilities in the South West (SW) Region of Cameroon. Being the first central level supervision, some four sites; Regional Hospital Buea, Baptist Hospital Mutengene, Regional Hospital Limbe and Tiko Central Clinic/CDC Cottage Hospital were visited for the exercise from July 31 to August 1, 2019.
The Senior Supervisor was accompanied by the HIV-Free SW PMTCT Cohort Monitoring Focal Point, and the Monitoring and Evaluation (M&E) Supervisor. The objectives of the two-day facilitative supervision were to check the availability of Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs), enrolling women and children into the different cohorts, the implementation of the new viral load algorithm for pregnant women, the viral load coverage, collection of PCR samples and the availability of PCR results in the register.
Giving feedback on the supervisory visit during the coordination meeting on August 2, 2019, Dr. Tumasang said she was impressed with the fact that all trained service providers who met at the facilities know the objective of the approach which is to ensure that babies born of HIV positive mothers are negative for HIV at the end of at least 18 months.
Given that the risk of transmitting HIV is much more reduced when a client is virally suppressed, Dr. Tumasang stressed on the need for the mothers to do viral load test, ensure proper counselling for adherence and enhance adherence counselling for those whose viral loads are unsuppressed. Of the four sites visited, Baptist Hospital Mutengene was noted to be the best in terms of performance.
Some lapses noticed in the facilities visited called for a reminder and orientation on how to effectively implement PMTCT Cohort Monitoring. For the past 7 months, 206 HIV positive women have been enrolled in PMTCT maternal cohort with 202 active and 127 in the infant cohort.