Thirteen Caribbean nations are close to eliminating HIV transmission from mothers to children and could likely win international certification in a year’s time, officials said this week.
In messages to mark annual World HIV-AIDS Day celebrations, officials credited the remarkable progress, both by countries in the Caribbean trade bloc and by those outside the trade bloc, such as the Dominican Republic, to increased access to antiretroviral drugs by mothers during pregnancies and to more women seeking help from authorities to protect their offspring from becoming infected.
United National Regional AIDS Support Team Director Ernest Massiah noted in a statement celebrating the achievements of the region, that a validation process is currently underway across the region to confirm infection rates reported by various governments.
It is likely, Massiah contended, that one of the 13 “will be the first in the world to announce that it has ended HIV transmission to babies.” He noted, “This region was the first to eliminate polio and measles. These successes would not have been possible without political commitment. We need the same will to end mother-to-child HIV transmission. The question is which country will be first.”
Massiah said that in the very recent past, at least one in every four babies born to HIV- positive mothers in the Caribbean was infected at birth, but such infections no longer occur at the same level, thanks to greater access to drugs.
He named Anguilla, Barbados, Cuba, Guyana, Montserrat and St. Kitts as all having indicated that they have reached the elimination target of below 2 percent transmission. “Guyana’s transmission rate is 1.6 per cent, Bonaire, the Cayman Islands, Curacao, Dominica, Saba, St. Eustatius, St. Kitts and St. Maarten have not had an HIV-positive baby on record in the past 4 to 10 years, but must finalize their documentation,” Massiah said. “The Bahamas, Jamaica and Suriname currently have transmission rates between 2 and 5 percent. Antigua and Barbuda, Belize, Haiti and Trinidad are behind, with more than 5 percent of children born to mothers living with HIV becoming infected. The Dominican Republic, Grenada and St Lucia have insufficient information.”
The region received hundreds of millions of dollars from a U.S. fund designed to help eliminate AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria, and the money has apparently trickled down both to state and to private clinics throughout the region.
“No child living in the Caribbean should be born with HIV,” Massiah said. “We must look carefully at how we can protect and empower women so that they go to clinic early, get tested, get treated and follow-up with their babies.”