Mother-to-child transmission reduces to 2%

BY WATIPASO MZUNGU JNR
Tuesday, 23 February 2010

Government has commended the Drug Resource against Aids and Malnutrition (DREAM) Programme for its efforts that have resulted in the reduction of cases of mother-to-child transmission of HIV in the country to 2 percent.

Principal Secretary for Nutrition, HIV and Aids in the Office of the President and Cabinet Dr. Mary Shawa made the remarks in Lilongwe when she opened a workshop on the new prevention of mother to child transmission (PMTCT) perspectives in resource-limited settings.

Shawa explained that Malawi had registered a significant success in the fight against mother-child-transmission, especially in areas where DREAM Programme is implementing its PMTCT interventions.

“Our research has shown that transmission of HIV from the mother to the child has greatly declined from 35 percent to 1.8 percent and maternal mortality has declined to 0.003 from 1.1 percent in DREAM Centres. And this is not a mean achievement in the fight against HIV and Aids,” she said.

She further applauded the programme for its holistic approach to the fight against the pandemic.

“In the DREAM Centres, there is a social poverty analysis, which qualifies the pregnant woman and her family to be placed on nutrition support. The programme has assisted in delaying the progression of HIV into Aids condition and available studies have indicated that one can remain positive for nine to fifteen years before developing fully-blown Aids,” she said.

In his remarks, DREAM Programme Scientific Director Professor Leonardo Palombi said that among 1,000 women who were assisted by DREAM Programme the results showed that about 98 percent of the babies born to HIV-positive mothers survived and were free from HIV at the end of the first five years of their lives.

Professor Palombi said these results were not achieved in a special clinical trial, but a public health system run by the programme.

“The use of Highly Active Anti-retroviral Therapy (HAART) during pregnancy has demonstrated to reduce HIV transmission rates to less than 2%, and often to less than 1% in areas where treatment is available,” said Palombi.

He also assured government of his programme's continued support to its agenda to reduce maternal mortality and transmission of HIV from a mother to the child.

The DREAM is a public health prevention and treatment programme founded and run by the Community of Saint Egidio, but gets its funding from Intessa San Paolo, a leading Italian bank.

The programmne provides HIV care to over 55,000 infected individuals in 10 African countries in Sub-Saharan Africa.
END