Prevention of HIV Transmission from Mother to Child: Strategic options (Best Practice - Key Material) (UNAIDS, 1999, 24 p.): 4. The wider benefits of the package of interventions

Prevention of HIV Transmission from Mother to Child: Strategic options (Best Practice - Key Material) (UNAIDS, 1999, 24 p.)

(introduction...)

1. Introduction

(introduction...)

1.1 The risk of MTCT

1.2 Prevention strategies

1.3 The cost of inaction

2. Major issues for decision-making

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2.1 Counselling and voluntary testing

2.2 Stigma and discrimination

2.3 Health care systems

2.4 Replacement feeding

3. Pilot projects

4. The wider benefits of the package of interventions

5. Questions of ethics

6. Affordability and cost-effectiveness of the strategy

7. A decision tree

4. The wider benefits of the package of interventions

Providing voluntary counselling and testing, antiretroviral drugs and replacement feeding for the reduction of MTCT has benefits that extend way beyond the direct benefits to the health and survival of infants. All pregnant women, mothers and infants will benefit from the expanded provision and improved quality of health care, especially mother-and-child health, antenatal, delivery and postnatal services. And the population as a whole will benefit from general strengthening of the health infrastructure, as well as from the increased understanding and acceptance of the HIV/AIDS epidemic and those affected that develop as a consequence of counselling and testing and measures to combat stigmatization. A decision to introduce the package of interventions can, in the first place, be a force for social change, providing the opportunity and impetus needed to tackle often long-standing problems of inadequate services and oppressive attitudes.