Report on PMTCT comprehensive community intervention package including male involvement, infant follow-up, peer support, partner violence and infant feeding in Nkangala district, Mpumalanga province

Abstract

With around 2.7 million people becoming infected with HIV in 2010, there are now an estimated 34 million people around the world who are living with HIV, including millions who have developed AIDS (UNAIDS, 2011). Studies have shown that there is much that can be done to reduce AIDS impact beginning with the transmission of HIV (UNAIDS, 2011). In 2010, around 390,000 children under the age of 15 became infected with HIV, mainly through mother-to-child transmission. Therefore HIV continues to weigh heavily on maternal and child mortality in some countries. About 90% of children living with HIV reside in sub-Saharan Africa where, in the context of a high child mortality rate, AIDS accounts for 8 percent of all under-five deaths in the region (ibid). Access to services for preventing the mother-to-child transmission of HIV has however increased and South Africa has achieved almost 90% coverage of treatment to prevent mother-to-child transmission of HIV, transmission to infants has therefore been drastically reduced (UNAIDS, Report on Global AIDS Epidemic, 2010).