South Africa has the largest number of HIV infections, with approximately 6.4 million people living with HIV ( Shisana O et al., 2014) and 29.5% (National Department of Health, 2014) of this part were pregnant women. Figure 1 (Barron et al., 2013) showed prevalence of HIV infection among pregnant women from 1990 and 2010. From 2002 to 2012, HIV prevalence decreased among children (Avert, 2015). However, there were 9% of newly infected with HIV live in South Africa in 2011 (UNAIDS, 2011). Mother-to-children transmission (MTCT), which was the main reason associates to the high percentage of HIV infected children.
In 2001(Avert, 2015), South African government first implemented prevention of mother-to-children transmission (PMTCT) …show more content…
By 2010, PMTCT services were offered at 98% health facilities (UNAIDS, 2012). In 2005, fewer than 50% pregnant women required tests for HIV infection ( ). By contrast, about 274,000 pregnant women received HIV test at ANC facilities by 2011 (UNGASS, 2011). Over last decade, the number of adults and children required ART was approximately 2.7 million (Barker et al., 2015, NDH, 2014). Mother-to-child transmission of HIV in South Africa has dropped to 3.5% which meet the previous NSPs target of less than 5% (Avert, …show more content…
One of the problems is the trend of maternal mortality. A survey of a large region among hospital in Johannesburg showed that the percentage of maternal mortality had no dramatic decrease since 2007 (Avert, 2015). Studies have illustrated that children whose mother stay alive and healthy have less risk of death, despite of the child’s HIV status (UNAIDS, 2012). Another issue is the inequity
Conclusion
South Africa, which has large numbers of HIV infected pregnant women and children. Although, South Africa did not launch PMTCT programme until 2002, political support was given to scaled-up it in the next years. According to the reduction of mother-to-child transmission and the child morbidity and mortality, positive impacts of PMTCT programme were significant in South Africa. There were still several problems were remained include maternal mortality and the inequity of resources, regardless of the effective impact of PMTCT programme. In order to deal with existing issues in South Africa, more attentions should be paid and effectively political support should be practiced by national organizations and South African