UNICEF: Mother-to-child HIV transmission in Zambia

On 17-19 April, leading global health experts, policy makers and parliamentarians will gather in South Africa for Countdown to 2015 -- a conference on child and maternal mortality. This is one in a series of related stories.

LUAPULA PROVINCE, Zambia, 16 April 2008 -- For the past eight months, 34-year-old Regina, a mother in Zambia's Luapula Province, has been waiting anxiously for the final test results that will decide her daughter's future. It is possible that her child may test positive for HIV.

Regina's local clinic runs a prevention of mother-to-child transmission (PMTCT) programme. By providing both the mother and newborn child with doses of the antiretroviral drug Neviropene, the programme can reduce the chance of the virus being transmitted to her child.

"During childbirth, they gave me and my baby Neviropene, and because of that I hope that my baby will be HIV-negative," said Regina.

To read the full story, visit: http://www.unicef.org/infobycountry/zambia_43579.html

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Tags:

• UNICEF
• Countdown
• to
• 2015
• child
• mortality
• Millennium
• Development
• Goals
• Zambia
• HIV
• AIDS
• HIV/AIDS