Experts manage to eliminate mother-to-child transmission of HIV

The first country in the world that managed to receive the validation by the World Health Organization (WHO) for having removed the mother-to-child transmission of HIV and syphilis is Cuba.

According to Margaret Chan, the CEO of the World Health Organization this recent achievement of the experts is one of the greatest so far and is a very important step in fighting against HIV and all the other sexually transmitted infections.

Since 2010, experts from the World Health Organizations had worked together with experts from Cuba and all the other Latin American countries and now their work proved to be successful.

Since the experts began their research, the number of Children born each year with HIV has fallen dramatically from 400.000 in 2010 to 240.000 in 2013 and the goal of the experts was to achieve a number of only 40.000 children born with the virus this year, but although they failed to reach their goal they still work very hard.

In the world, about 1,4 million women have HIV and become pregnant and if they are not treated the chances of transmitting the virus to their child during the Pregnancy or after that is very high, about 15% to 45%.

Also, about one million pregnant women from around the world are infected with syphilis each year, but if they are treated during the pregnancy with penicillin, they can eliminate the possible complications.  

The mother-to-child transmission of HIV and syphilis is considered to be eliminated if the infections rate is at a low level, so low that is no longer a problem of public health and this is the case of Cuba today. 

Cuba ensured early access to prenatal care and that is how they managed to have 2 in 100 babies born with HIV and one in 2000 babies born with syphilis. In fact, in all Latin America and the Caribbean it is estimated that the number of children born with HIV or syphilis dropped by almost a half since 2010 when the experts began their work, so besides Cuba, six other American countries are ready to request validation for eliminating these diseases to WHO.

Although a very big progress has been made in Cuba and in other American countries, many countries worldwide have yet to prioritize the prevention and the treatment of mother-to-child transmission of HIV and syphilis.