Cuba has just won a health victory. It is the first country in the world to have succeeded in eliminating the transmission of AIDS and syphilis from mother to child through its system of universal access to care and the delivery of antiretrovirals to infected pregnant women. To reduce the number of cells infected with HIV and the risk of complications, patients should be prescribed retroantiviral therapy as early as possible. The faster the medication is taken, the more the treatment will increase the patient’s vital prognosis.
The use of antiretrovirals in pregnant women has reduced the risk of mother-to-child transmission of AIDS to 1%. When sick women are not treated with these treatments, they have a 15-45% risk of transmitting HIV to their babies during pregnancy, childbirth or while breastfeeding.
“This success is an important step towards the goal of an AIDS-free generation,” explains Dr Margaret Chan, WHO Director-General. “Universal access to medical coverage and care is possible and is in fact the key to success even against challenges as immense as AIDS,” says Dr Carissa Etienne, director of the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO).
1.4 million women infected with HIV become pregnant each year worldwide, mostly in developing countries and especially in sub-Saharan Africa, according to WHO figures. The number of children born with HIV has almost halved since 2009, dropping from 400,000 to 240,000 in 2013. However, the current WHO target is less than 40,000 children infected with HIV annually by their mothers. .
Antivirals in prevention for populations at risk
35.5 million live with AIDS worldwide. Force to note that the epidemic continues to explode, the WHO published in July 2014 its new health recommendations on AIDS. Gottfried Hirnschall, director of the HIV department at the organization told reporters that “men who have sex with men are strongly recommended to consider taking antiretrovirals as an additional method of preventing HIV”.
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