A total of 72 participants from China, Côte d’Ivoire, Djibouti, Madagascar, Mozambique, Namibia, Nepal, Panama, Senegal, South Africa, Zimbabwe and many other countries attended the webinar to learn about the validation criteria for elimination of mother-to-child transmission (MTCT) of HIV and syphilis, as well as pre-elimination criteria, from World Health Organization (WHO) representatives.
The main message was that achieving elimination and qualifying for the validation process will require more than reducing the proportion of HIV-positive children who are born to women living with HIV. In high burden countries, it will require reducing the HIV case rate to ≤ 50 per 100,000 live births. This essentially means reducing HIV incidence among young girls and pregnant women and reducing the unmet need for family planning (FP), increasing partner testing, etc., in order to reduce the case rate along with the declines in MTCT of HIV seen in many countries.
Links to the presentation and summary can be found below.
Presented on March 17, 2016