The Prevention of Mother-to -Child Transmission (PMTCT) of HIV programme is said to have enabled the country to prevent 30 to 40 percent of new born babies from contracting the virus.
PMCT is a programme that was introduced by the World Health Organisation (WHO) with the aim of preventing mother to child transmission of the HIV virus.
Ministry of Health public relations officer Henry Chimbali told Malawi News Agency (Mana) that since the introduction of the programme, the country has managed to reduce the spread of the virus.
“PMTCT as a programme has been scaled up rapidly after its introduction many years back. PMTCT accounts for about 10 percent of cases, it represents 95 percent of all infection in infants. Without doing anything, 30 to 40 percent of all new born babies will be infected by HIV,” said Chimbali.
He, however, expressed concern that few men are willing to accompany their wives to antenatal clinics for HIV testing.
“Since we started this programme, we have seen more women accessing HTC [HIV testing and counselling] and now we encourage men to participate.
“This is still a challenge as more men are not forth coming to support their pregnant women especially on ante-natal services, at present, with the introduction of new PMTCT guidelines, we aim to eliminate the mother to child transmission of HIV and we hope this is possible, he said.
In 2005, only three percent of HIV-positive mothers were using PMTCT services and mother-to-child transmission of HIV accounted for 30 percent of all new infections nationally.
