Health Care for 500 HIV+ Children in Zambia

Power of Love's pediatric HIV/AIDS care program continues to improve the lives of several hundred children and families impacted by HIV/AIDS and malaria in Zambia. The vision for this program is to strengthen women and grandmothers, so that they can take care of their own children and sick family members at home. We do this by providing food, medicines and a package of life saving health care services to HIV positive children in Zambia.

The goal of this program is to keep children healthy so that they can attend school. At this time we have 200 HIV positive children in our program and 167 are of school going age. Out of these 167 children, 129 are in elementary school, 29 in middle school, and 9 in high school. We are proud that these children are able to attend school as out of the 200 children only 26% are being cared for by both parents, 84%  being cared for by a single parent,  grandparents or other relatives. We strive constantly to ensure that all children eligible for school are in school.

In addition to food and medicines, our program provides weekly health checkups, psychosocial counseling, education in prevention of HIV, adherence monitoring, and malaria bed nets to the children. As a result of this high quality care provided, most children are stable in health and able to live close to normal lives. In fact, most children showed positive signs of improvement in their health as measured by their weight and CD4 counts. All children (except two) gained weight/stayed same in weight; and all children (except 1) had stable or higher CD4 counts since January 2013. In addition, out of the 128 children on anti-retroviral medication, more than half are aware of their HIV positive status. Children who are aware of their status undergo adherence training that teaches them the importance of taking their medicines on time and provides them with simple tools so that they can adhere to their medication regimen. In addition, our Nurse and health workers monitor their adherence to the medication regimen and so far all children are adhering well to their medications.

Our program impacts 200 children and their families directly and an additional 1200 children indirectly as the family members share their knowledge of caring for an HIV positive child with others in the community. Your generous donation will provide much needed food, medicines, and health care services to several hundred children in the community of Matero in Lusaka, Zambia, and help them stay healthy and in school.

Thanks for your continued support.  

Links:

• Stories of children
• What makes our program unique?
• Achievements of our program