[pronut-hiv] Nutrition and Care of HIV-infected Children

["Lilian Wambua(AFA_HIV_AIDS)" <LWambua@AFA.CI.ORG>]

Promote good nutrition for all children, knowing that this will also benefit those who have HIV infection but are not diagnosed.
Lilian Tendo Wambua. MD.
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One of the reasons you may not have had much feedback on this topic is
because very few children are actually diagnosed as having HIV infection.
You may have information on this from children's homes that specifically
recruit children who are HIV positive into the homes. We know that this is
now institutional care and a child in an institution cannot be compared to a
child in a normal family situation who has HIV infection. 

Many children in Africa who have HIV infection are not known because they are not tested, for several reasons. If one has to intervene in the
nutrition of such children, the first  challenge is to be able to identify
those children with a view of having specific programmes, e.g. feeding for
them. Most of children diagnosed with HIV infection is mostly done when they are repeatedly ill, and the medical person then suspects HIV infection.
Consent from caregivers is required for testing children, and there are
several obstacles to this. These obstacles have to be removed for the child
to benefit from any specific nutrition intervention. 

One way of going about the problem is just to promote good nutrition for all
children, knowing that this will also benefit those who have HIV infection
but are not diagnosed. My experience in the field indicates that HIV
infected children within institutional care and those with good family care,
fare pretty better than those who find themselves in poor families,
struggling to survive in an environment with extremely poor sanitation. 

Lilian Tendo Wambua. MD.

-----Original Message-----
From: pronut-hiv@healthnet.org [mailto:pronut-hiv@healthnet.org] 

Nutrition and Care of HIV-infected Children
-------------------------------------------------------------------

Since very few contributions were received on nutrition and care of
HIV-infected infants and children, we felt that there might not be much
guidance on the subject. However, we thought we should not shift to another
topic without attempting to generate discussion from the forum on what
should be done for the nutrition care and support of HIV infected children.
 
We believe that the ideas generated may help front line providers  and
program planners start addressing the nutrition care and support for HIV
infected children.

For HIV infected children who are asymptomatic and have adequate growth and development, should the diet and feeding practices of these children differ from those of the children from the same age group who are not HIV infected?

Please provide the group with reasons why you think it should be the same or that it should be different.

For the HIV infected child who is sick should the nutrition care and support
provided differ from the recommendations on Management of the Sick Child as outlined in the Integrated Management of Childhood Illness?
If so why? and if not so why? please provide the group with your reasons.

AED Moderation Team


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