South Africa: Prevention of Mother-to-Child HIV Transmission Registers Success
By Eunice Kilonzo
Durban---South African health officials say a new programme aimed at stopping mother to child transmission (PMTCT) of HIV has prevented thousands of babies from becoming infected with the virus.
The South African Medical Research Council says data just released at the 2011 AIDS Conference in Durban show the HIV transmission rate between mother and child has dropped to 3.5 per cent.
The survey also showed that mother-to-child HIV transmission rates varied widely among South Africa's nine provinces. In those with problematic PMTCT coverage, such as Free State and the largely rural Mpumalanga, up to nearly 6 per cent of infants born to HIV positive mothers had acquired the virus.
Based on the success of the programme, the South African government believes the transmission of HIV from pregnant mothers to babies can be eliminated by the year 2015. In line with the recent remarks by the UN secretary general, Ban Ki-moon, that the international goal must now be to eliminate Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome by 2020 -- "zero new infections, zero stigma and zero AIDS-related deaths."
Without access to public services for prevention of mother-to-child transmission (PMTCT), which provide antiretroviral (ARV) to both mothers and babies to prevent HIV infection, up to 40 per cent of babies born to HIV-positive mums could contract the virus before or during birth. Doctors however intend to repeat the evaluation programme through this year and 2012 so they can better evaluate the effectiveness of the HIV prevention programme over a longer period.
Although rates of infant testing have climbed in recent years, child immunization uptake is almost 99 per cent. Provider-initiated infant HIV testing may need to be offered alongside a child's first shots. This achievement comes at a time that the world is marking the 30th anniversary of the discovery of AIDS. African leaders have called for a ``final solution’’ to combat the HIV and AIDS epidemic, which has killed nearly 30 million people in the past three decades.
On June 5, 1981, the first official cases of HIV/AIDS were reported in the United States among gay men in Los Angeles. The disease was around long before that. It’s just that no one knew what it was or what to call it. It was already taking a toll in Africa, where it was called slim disease. That’s because people lost so much weight before they died.