Last May, the director of UN AIDS declared the goal to “virtually eliminate mother to child transmission of HIV by 2015.” To better understand the challenges as well as the accessibility of this goal, an explanation of Prevention of Mother to Child Transmission (PMTCT) programs is needed.

During my time spent, in women’s health clinics in the slums of Nairobi, the need for the provision of the Antiretroviral therapy (ARVs) for HIV positive people became clear as I personally witnessed how hard they were to come by, thus hindering PMTCT programs which require the use of only one ARV drug, Nevrapine (NVP). Antiretroviral therapy includes a mix of several drugs to prevent an HIV positive individual from developing AIDS. In any country, ARVs are very expensive; however PMTCT programs only require the use of one ARV medicine, making it a cost effective intervention even in the most low-resource settings.

Without any treatment, HIV can be transmitted from mother to child during pregnancy, labor, and through breastfeeding. Even if the mother is not on an ARV regimen, the PMTCT regimen can still be administered effectively. A PMTCT regimen includes the provision of NVP to[...]

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