Cuba Is First To Earn WHO Seal For Ending Mother-Baby HIV Transmission

JULY 06, 2015 1:47 PM ET

A woman has HIV. She becomes pregnant. What are the chances that she can deliver a baby who is not infected?

In some countries, like Yemen, for example, only 11 percent of pregnant women with HIV receive treatment to prevent their babies from being infected. For women who aren't part of that fortunate group, the chance of passing HIV to their infant is as high as 45 percent.

But in Cuba, the chances are now practically nil. On June 30, Cuba became the first country to receive what can be seen as a global seal of approval — the World Health Organization validation — for essentially eliminating transmission of AIDS from a mother to her baby. (Cuba has eliminated transmission of syphilis as well.)

Here's how Cuba did it.

When a Cuban woman becomes pregnant, odds are extremely high she already knows whether she is infected with HIV. She was likely diagnosed at a family clinic near her home, and then referred to a policlinico, or a clinic with a higher level of specialized services, to monitor and treat her HIV, according to Sonja Caffe, regional adviser on HIV and the Pan American Health Organization, the WHO regional office for the Americas.

If she is infected with HIV, when she becomes pregnant, she begins oral antiretroviral treatment, shown to prevent transmission to her newborn in 98 percent of cases.

At about 38 weeks into her pregnancy, if she agrees, she gives birth by cesarean section, which has been shown to reduce transmission of the disease through the birth canal. To further protect the baby from the virus, she is counseled not to breastfeed her child and the child is given antiretroviral treatment for four to six weeks.

If only we can send our medics to Cuba for training

http://www.npr.org/secti...er-baby-hiv-transmission

na si waafrika tunapenda trips, trainings and conferences! we already know these things... mambo ni kufanya! processes, people....sio training.

Cubans are way advanced in matters medicine - their docs are very valued across the world and they are readily received in all the places Castro has been sending them

Besides their cigars their doctors are a major export.

wacha watu wakule - that's where extra cash is earned plus kwa cv unaongeza international experience.

lakini in this case it would be cheaper to get the doctors from Cuba to come into the country, if our medics are that badly off that hawajui the technicalities of stopping mother to child HIV infection.