Counselling Course on HIV and Infant Feeding

Dr. Savage announced that the UNICEF/WHO “Counselling Course on HIV and Infant Feeding” will be launched in Harare on 3-7 April 2000. The course is based on the WHO/UNAIDS/UNICEF guidelines on ‘HIV and infant feeding’ published in 1998. The training is for counsellors, mainly health workers, who counsel HIV-infected mothers on the risks of different feeding options, including breastfeeding, modified animal milk and commercial formula. The participants should already have adequate knowledge on breastfeeding counselling, since not all aspects of breastfeeding counselling are dealt with on this course.

During the first three days of the course, participants from eight countries in the region will be trained on HIV and infant feeding counselling, and it is expected that they will be involved in their own countries as trainers of counsellors. The last two days of the course will focus on organising the HIV and infant feeding counselling course at country level and on planning other aspects of HIV and infant feeding, including policy development. The country teams are expected to develop detailed action plans on HIV and infant feeding for their countries.