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.