By Blessing Udeobasi

Women-led Initiative restoring hope for widows, orphans living with HIV in Nigeria

After 16-year-old Benard* was diagnosed with HIV, all he needed was meaningful engagement, counselling and proper medication to achieve viral load suppression and continue his normal life without being constantly down with sickness, but factors such as poor parental care, ignorance, non-adherence to a regimen, poor nutrition and poverty among other things deprived him of such care leading to the deterioration of his health.

This is similar to the experience of over 1.9 million persons living with HIV/AIDS in Nigeria of which about 900,000 are yet to show up for treatment and are currently unaccounted for.

Although no cure currently exists for HIV/AIDS, studies have shown that strict adherence to antiretroviral regimens (ARVs) helps slow the disease’s progress as well as prevent secondary infections and complications.

Viral load suppression entails reducing the amount of HIV in the blood to less than 200 copies per millilitre thereby keeping the patient healthy and in most cases, undetectable.

But suppressing a patient’s viral load does not come free of charge as patients in Nigeria pay out of pocket for the drugs which cost about $231 annually, while those in rural communities incur extra costs to locate health centres in urban areas due to poor access to healthcare facilities.

This is why HIV patients like Bernard who is a maternal orphan as well as a school dropout find it hard to manage their health status.

Rays of hope only beamed on him when he was introduced to Antiretroviral Therapy(ART) on June 3, 2019, during a women-led Initiative’s SURGE project for Orphans and Vulnerable Children(OVC) in Rivers State, South Southern Nigeria.

After months of delayed improvement following the Initiative’s intervention, Bernard’s health finally began to improve from November 2020 until October 2021 when he achieved viral load suppression.

Now back to school with support from the Initiative, Bernard constantly goes to the facility for drug refills with close monitoring and continuous engagement.

The Initiative is Widows and Orphans Empowerment Organization (WEWE), a 100 per cent women-led non-for-profit established in 2004 by Ms Josephine Ogazi-Egwuonwu in her home community where she began by empowering widows as well as giving scholarships to their children.

“Our aim is building the capacity of widows and their orphans who are most vulnerable to stand together for their rights to actively contribute to civil society, governance and leadership in Nigeria and Africa.” Ms Josephine told AWiM News.

With the continued increase in the number of people living with HIV worldwide as of 2008, reaching an estimated 33.4 million, WEWE started providing support for HIV patients in 2009 with the help of a subgrant offered by USAID.

Josephine says the initiative’s primary obligation to HIV-positive patients is ensuring they are retained in care and virally suppressed. To achieve this, the organisation provides treatment support and viral load sample collections for patients with limited access to funds that impedes their clinical appointments, reminders/notifications for the appointment, emergency clinical support, and emergency food intervention.

By collaborating with clinics to identify and enrol positive patients, WEWE carries out index/genealogy testing by tracing families of HIV-positive patients to identify other family members that may also be infected.

“We also identify and refer exposed infants (Infants born from HIV-positive parents) for Dry Blood Samples (DBS) and if the test for the DBS is HIV positive we follow up with the baby to be enrolled in the clinics where we have a partnership with for HIV treatment and care,” Josephine added.

So far, WEWE has identified, enrolled, and provided care and treatment for 13,571 HIV patients including 8797 HIV-positive adult caregivers and 4773 HIV-positive children by linking them to ART services and providing follow-ups to ensure they access the services and are retained in care.

All these are made possible using donations and grants from organisations such as USAID Nigeria mission, US Center for Disease Control (CDC) and VIIV Healthcare Positive Action for Children Fund (PACF).

Asked what she hopes to achieve with the initiative, Josephine revealed that her driving force remains the desire to ensure that at least 95 per cent of persons living with HIV are virally suppressed and retained in care. 95 per cent reduction in disease burden and stigma, accelerate access to treatment and prevent transmission of the virus by already infected people.

This article is part of the African Women in Media (AWIM) Graduate Trainee Programme in collaboration with Fojo Media Institute.

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By Blessing Udeobasi

Women-led Initiative restoring hope for widows, orphans living with HIV in Nigeria

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