PlusNews examines challenges to Burundi's PMTCT program

"A shortage of health facilities and health workers, frequent drug shortages and a weak government policy mean HIV-positive pregnant women in Burundi often give birth without taking any precautions to prevent transmission of the virus to their children," PlusNews reports.

In addition, according to Celine Kanyonge, head of the prevention of mother-to-child HIV transmission (PMTCT) program in the Ministry of Health, a "lack of male participation in their partners' pregnancies was a hindrance to the PMTCT program," PlusNews writes. "'The government should plan how to sensitize people, using more effort and means to achieve more; only newspapers and radios talk about HIV and PMTCT, but also not [often],'" she added, noting that "particular attention needed to be paid to rural areas, where the majority of the population lives," according to PlusNews (8/12).