Comprehensive care for children with HIV: Don’t forget nutrition
By Katheryn Barrera
"Attention must be paid to making better nutrition a reality for those children on treatment."
Toronto- Throughout the International AIDS Conference there was an undercurrent of discussion about nutrition and children affected by HIV and AIDS. The issue was raised in most of the sessions on client care. A little surprising, as talking about food hand-outs has been more or less taboo for sometime.
There are still concerns about food dependency, food jealousies within communities, and how we must feed families, as you cannot just feed one person in a household. At one particular nutrition session, Dr Paul Farmer (Partners for Health) emphasised that food support is still a stop-gap measure, that in time programmes like FairTrade must get communities back to producing sufficiently for themselves.
Even with the apparent shift in the AIDS agenda back towards an emphasis on prevention, attention must be paid to making better nutrition a reality for those people on treatment. And though antiretroviral therapy (ART) for kids has started in many countries, good nutrition is still especially critical for HIV positive children.
At the session titled ‘It takes more than a village to raise a child’ all three presenters brought up food and feeding. Kathleen Okatcha of Kenya admitted that providing children at her centres with a nutritious meal helps improve their health, though they still don’t have free ARTs.
In Nigeria, HIV positive children were kept alive primarily through improved nutrition until ART arrived for them last November. After ART was begun, results were relatively poor until the communities were involved in nutrition programmes for the children. In Tanzania, income-generating projects were used to improve food supplements received from the World Food Program to assisting mothers and their children affected by HIV.
At another satellite session on food and nutrition in care and treatment the chair, again Dr Paul Farmer, urged all the participants to advocate seriously for food support in their work. Stephen Lewis, UN Special Envoy for AIDS in Africa, also reiterated this message.
The Toronto conclusion on this issue? Nutrition is a vital element in the provision of comprehensive care for HIV positive children.
Contributed by:
Katheryn Barrera
[First distributed: 16 August 2006]
Source: Children-IAC2006 eForum 2006: Children-IAC2006@eforums.healthdev.org
"Attention must be paid to making better nutrition a reality for those children on treatment."
Toronto- Throughout the International AIDS Conference there was an undercurrent of discussion about nutrition and children affected by HIV and AIDS. The issue was raised in most of the sessions on client care. A little surprising, as talking about food hand-outs has been more or less taboo for sometime.
There are still concerns about food dependency, food jealousies within communities, and how we must feed families, as you cannot just feed one person in a household. At one particular nutrition session, Dr Paul Farmer (Partners for Health) emphasised that food support is still a stop-gap measure, that in time programmes like FairTrade must get communities back to producing sufficiently for themselves.
Even with the apparent shift in the AIDS agenda back towards an emphasis on prevention, attention must be paid to making better nutrition a reality for those people on treatment. And though antiretroviral therapy (ART) for kids has started in many countries, good nutrition is still especially critical for HIV positive children.
At the session titled ‘It takes more than a village to raise a child’ all three presenters brought up food and feeding. Kathleen Okatcha of Kenya admitted that providing children at her centres with a nutritious meal helps improve their health, though they still don’t have free ARTs.
In Nigeria, HIV positive children were kept alive primarily through improved nutrition until ART arrived for them last November. After ART was begun, results were relatively poor until the communities were involved in nutrition programmes for the children. In Tanzania, income-generating projects were used to improve food supplements received from the World Food Program to assisting mothers and their children affected by HIV.
At another satellite session on food and nutrition in care and treatment the chair, again Dr Paul Farmer, urged all the participants to advocate seriously for food support in their work. Stephen Lewis, UN Special Envoy for AIDS in Africa, also reiterated this message.
The Toronto conclusion on this issue? Nutrition is a vital element in the provision of comprehensive care for HIV positive children.
Contributed by:
Katheryn Barrera
[First distributed: 16 August 2006]
Source: Children-IAC2006 eForum 2006: Children-IAC2006@eforums.healthdev.org
posted by AIDS-Care-Watch at 1:02 pm
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