The Institute of Human Virology Nigeria (IHVN) has announced that Rivers State has achieved over 95 per cent HIV testing coverage among pregnant women, marking a major stride in preventing mother-to-child transmission of the virus.
Project Director of the Rivers ASPIRE Project at IHVN, Dr. Stanley Idakwo, disclosed this during a briefing in Abuja on Tuesday. He said data from the District Health Information System showed that between 2020 and 2023, HIV testing acceptance among pregnant women in the state consistently ranged between 95 and 100 per cent.
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Idakwo attributed the milestone to intensive community engagement, effective counselling, and the mentor mother model, which promotes adherence and emotional support among pregnant women. “This achievement is largely driven by strong peer mentorship and consistent health education. About 98.6 per cent of clients also expressed satisfaction with PMTCT services,” he said.
He noted, however, that barriers such as distance to health facilities, transport costs, and long waiting times continued to affect some women’s access to services. To tackle these, he said the institute was enhancing task-sharing among healthcare workers and integrating PMTCT into broader maternal and child health programmes.
Idakwo added that IHVN, in collaboration with the Rivers State Ministry of Health, was expanding access to rural and riverine communities and had trained more than 400 traditional birth attendants under a hub-and-spoke model.
“Our goal is to ensure no child in Rivers State is born with HIV,” Idakwo affirmed, pledging sustained collaboration and innovation to eliminate mother-to-child transmission.
