Fully Funded Global Fund Key to Preventing MTCT of HIV

"HIV is the leading cause of death of women of reproductive age," and without HIV, "maternal mortality worldwide would be 20 percent lower," Lucy Chesire, executive director and secretary to the Board of the TB ACTION Group, writes in the Huffington Post's "The Big Push" blog. She says that women "often face barriers accessing HIV treatment and care," adding she recently "was struck with the significant role the Global Fund [to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria] has played in reducing women's barriers to treatment."

Noting December 1 is World AIDS Day, with the theme "Getting to zero: zero new HIV infections," she writes, "[G]etting to zero means fully-funding the spectrum of interventions -- from prevention to counselors, health care workers, access to treatment and education -- that are all vitally important in the fight against HIV and AIDS." Chesire discusses the importance of preventing mother-to-child HIV transmission, describes several programs working to do so, and concludes, "A fully funded Global Fund in 2013 is one of the most important mechanisms to eliminate mother-to-child-transmission: we have the tools, we need the resources to do it" (11/28).