Team PATA

PATA 2007 Swaziland

40 teams from 20 countries tackled issues around TB/HIV AIDS and caring for Adolescents at the 2007 PATA conference where the issue of to breastfeed or not to breastfeed became a hot topic.

AIDS, TB, adolescence and breast-feeding all came to a head at the PATA Forum
"Any African can boil water." - Dr Joia Mukherjee (Partners in Health)
"Mothers must be exclusively breastfeeding their children." - Dr Chewe Luo (UNICEF)
These two contrasting statements by the keynote speaker on the opening night of the PATA Forum and the guest speaker on the second evening have highlighted one of the ongoing challenges for HIV/AIDS health care workers in Africa. Mukherjee told her audience that no child should under any circumstances be exposed to increased HIV infection (babies have an additional 15% risk of vertical transmission from mother to child via breastmilk), and that patients in Africa and the rest of the developing world are "not stupid" and know how to boil water, hence they can sterilise water to make safe formula milk.
Luo acknowledged that there was "confusion around exclusive breastfeeding", but that, when considering the increased risk of babies dying of other diseases such as gastro enteritis (if mothers use impure water sources to make milk formula from), then exclusive breastfeeding should still be preferential.
Considering Luo and Mukherjee spoke to health care workers (41 different clinic teams from 20 African countries are represented here) who are at the forefront of battling paediatric HIV/AIDS across the continent, these conflicting messages have prompted PATA organisers to highlight the issue for more detailed discussion at next year's Forum. The first two days of the four-day PATA Forum were dominated by discussions around the treatment of adolescents and TB in HIV/AIDS patients.
Professor Ben Marais (University of Stellenbosch) emphasised the enormous risk of TB infection for children under the age of three. He said that a big problem was the absence of special, sensitive tests for detection in this age group. Instead, simpler means had to be employed. He implored health care workers, parents and any member of the public to look out for children who were chronically coughing, not gaining weight and who were too tired to play. These were children at risk and who had to be brought in for further testing and observation.
One of the highlights in the adolescent masterclass presented by a series of experts was the talk by Dr Donna Futterman from New York. Drawing from her 20 years of experience in working with adolescents and HIV/AIDS, she presented a positive working model for health care workers to follow which included acknowledgement of differences in perspective between care worker and patient, negotiated treatment and simply to be better listeners when dealing with adolescent patients.
Sara Stulac from Partners in Health (Rwanda) spoke about the successful piloting of PATA's Expert Patient Programme (which allows for the employment of HIV-positive patients within the clinic to relieve the burden of doctors and other staff), which was introduced at 20 clinics across Africa during 2007. PATA's David Altschuler said that, due to the success of the pilot project, PATA will look to extend the reach of the project to 40 clinics in 2008. Clinic teams (consisting of doctors, nurses, pharmacists and counsellors) have been locked in workshops for large parts of the day, debating what strategy will be best for their respective clinics for the coming year.
The PATA Forum ended on World AIDS Day, December 1st 2007.

Venue: Royal Swazi Sun Hotel, Manzini, Swaziland
For media enquiries, please contact:
Paul Roux, PATA (paul.roux@uct.ac.za; cell +27 82 335 8147) or
Melanie Evans, PATA (melanie@teampata.org , cell +27 833009710) or
Busi Bhembe, Baylor Swaziland (bbhembe@baylorswaziland.org.sz, +268- 6020544)

PATA is sponsored by the One to One Children's Fund.
The third PATA Forum is jointly hosted by PATA and Baylor Swaziland.
Strategic partners of the PATA Forum: Kidzpositive, UNICEF, Clinton Foundation HIV/AIDS Initiative, SidAction, Partners in Health, American Jewish World Service, Miracle Corners of the World and CHIVA.
Donors: The ELMA Philanthropies, Aurum Funds, Synchronicity.