Theresia B Mkenda, K Sagary Nokoe and Samuel Karoki
Background section: This study presents a statistical update on the implementation of the national HIV/AIDS guidelines and policies in health facilities located in Kilimanjaro region, particularly, those related to Prevention of Mother to Child Transmission (PMTCT) and HIV Care and Treatment Centre (CTC). Methods and findings: Exploratory data analysis of 196 HIV positive women, children and youths who were receiving PMTCT and CTC services in nine (9) health facilities located in Kilimanjaro region was performed to extract the major insights regarding the implementation of HIV/AIDS policies and guidelines in the study area. The exploration and the distributional fit of the collected datasets indicated that the age at HIV confirmation for women follows a log logistic distribution while for children and youth follows a logistic distribution. The mean age at HIV infection for women under study was 27 years. Most of the children and youths claimed to have acquired HIV infection through vertical transmission. The study found that 42 (50%) of the children and youths under this study had lost at least one parent and 15 (29%) had lost both parents by the time this study was conducted. In addition, majority of women mentioned unwillingness of their male partners to test for HIV infection as the greatest barrier towards the eradication of the HIV/AIDS. Likewise, the healthcare givers mentioned the poor attitude towards HIV testing and retesting among pregnancy women as a continuing challenge in HIV/AIDS management. However, the study found an encouraging improvement on PMTCT services that enabled 69% of the babies who were born by the HIV positive women in this study to be HIV free. Conclusion: While acknowledging the great progress made by the Tanzania government towards attainment of the global 90-90-90 HIV target, there is still a need of establishing more HIV/AIDS interventions that will enable early detection and early treatment of HIV patients. This will help to lengthen the life expectancy of HIV/AIDS patients while minimizing the transmission rate.
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