Inter Press Service examines how efforts underway in Namibia have helped to decrease the number of infants born with HIV while also increasing the number of HIV-positive infants on life-saving antiretrovirals (ARVs).
According to the news service, since the launch of an early infant detection (EID) program in 2006, "the number of HIV-infected newborns has dropped from 13 percent to two percent in Namibia, according to the national Ministry of Health" -- figures that "stand in sharp contrast with data from other African countries where many pregnant women are not diagnosed in time to prevent mother-to-child transmission of the virus and only a few HIV-positive infants receive ARVs."
Of the 20,000 children living with HIV in Namibia, "7,622 children are receiving ARV treatment," according to Angela Mushavi, who is PMTCT coordinator of the CDC, a major donor for Namibia's EID-programme. "Namibia's progress in paediatric HIV has been particularly impressive, in light of the challenges facing its health care system," the news service writes.
The article highlights how the dry-blood sampling used for EID testing can be completed by parents and preserved during week-long shipments to laboratories and additional ways that the government has worked to make ARV treatments easier for infants and their caregivers (Van Den Bosch, 7/28).