Expectant mothers in the country ought to develop a habit of attending medical clinics regularly as a way of preventing mother-to-child transmission of HIV/AIDS. The Executive Director of Tanzania Commission for AIDS (TACAIDS) Dr Fatma Mrisho made the call in Dar es Salaam yesterday during a briefing on Children’s Special Session International Conference that would be held in the country on Monday.

Dr Mrisho said visiting medical clinics regularly would enable the HIV+ expectant mothers to get anti-retroviral treatment for children and in turn help reduce the child mortality rates across the country. Giving the statistics of children affected in the country, Dr Mrisho said that more than 11000 children are HIV+ according the survey carried out by the country’s health sector.

“To some extent the big rate is caused by expectant mothers for failing to attend the medical clinic regularly for check ups,” she said. Dr Mrisho also asked the public to stop stigmatizing infected mothers in various communities. Such a situation scares away expectant mothers and others from attending clinic. Briefing the journalists about the conference, the programme facilitator, Mr Richard Mabala said the conference would bring urgent and sustained action on the ways protecting the rights and the needs of all children living with HIV/AIDS.

The conference that was organized by East and Southern Africa Regional Inter-Agency Task Team (RIATT) on children and AIDS would review the required progress and evidence for action to scale up the response to HIV/AIDS children. The conference would be attended by more than 14 countries across East and Southern African region. The countries representatives would be accompanied with 4 HIV+ children from each country.