Red Cross Blogs

Guest post: Preventing mother-to-child HIV transmission in Lesotho

By Katrina Crew
November 24, 2009 at 11:15 am

Earlier this year, Emily Blewett was chosen as a finalist in the Guardian’s International Development Journalist Competition, which is sponsored by the British Red Cross. The competition chooses amateur and professional journalists to visit charity projects overseas and write about the positive stories that often get left out of the mainstream media.

On Saturday, Emily’s article “A postive change” – about how Red Cross volunteers in Lesotho are working to prevent mother-to-child HIV transmission – was published in a special supplement in the Guardian. She writes below about her experiences.

It is summer in Lesotho. Cranking up the heater in my pokey room in Exeter, I feel worlds – not just degrees – apart from my week in the mountain kingdom.

The prevention of mother-to-child transmission (PMTCT) in Lesotho is not a simple story for newspapers, nor does it fit into quirky headlines. Where government-funded medicine is freely available, it is not always accessible. Talking to pregnant mothers, I heard how stigma-related attitudes, rocky roads, and traditional ways of healing bar the way to clinics for many women.

I soon found that the majority of interviewees I was talking to were female. Unsurprising? Being female is a contingent of being pregnant. However, as is too often the case, I found that health remained a female issue. Hospitals were filled with female visitors and PMTCT remained a subject for female volunteers.

This is, however slowly, changing and talking HIV is starting to become a way of life in Lesotho. With a focus on support groups and home-based care, I found that the work of the Lesotho Red Cross was having a direct and effective impact in mobilising communities – men included.

One very distinct and up-lifting memory is of a chorus of HIV support group members singing about PMTCT outside the Red Cross clinic in Kena. Having just spoken about what more can be done to prevent HIV transmission, the officer in charge of the clinic turned to me and said, “It is people who bring change”.

It can be that simple. PMTCT has a human face and one that I met many times in my week. One Red Cross volunteer treks nine hours on foot to attend fortnightly meetings at the clinic, whilst another sponsors her pregnant neighbour’s bus fare to a hospital through the vegetables she sells. We do live in one world after all.

Images © Jenny Matthews/British Red Cross

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Tags: HIV, International, Lesotho, stigma

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