Groups to Give $50 Million to Cut Mother-to-Child AIDS Cases

Eight philanthropic foundations have committed more than $50 million for a pilot program to reduce mother-to-child transmission of HIV/AIDS in developing countries by treating mothers in addition to their newborns. The foundations, which are expected to announce the initiative today, intend eventually to raise $100 million for the five-year program.

The program seeks to reduce the number of infected babies by providing their mothers with testing, drugs and other health care. Infection of newborns can be prevented with a low-cost regimen of drugs, but the lack of treatment programs for mothers has discouraged many expectant mothers from seeking care, organizers said. Of the 26 million pregnant women in sub-Saharan Africa this year, experts estimate, more than 2.5 million are infected with HIV. The funds won't be a part of the new $1.5 billion fund spearheaded by UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan to fight AIDS, malaria and TB, but will work in cooperation with that effort, said Gordon Conway, president of the Rockefeller Foundation.

The program will be administered by the Mailman School of Public Health at Columbia University, which will screen grants from organizations running clinics in Asia and Latin America, as well as Africa. A portion of the money will be given to UNICEF. Other organizations participating in the effort include the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, the Kaiser Family Foundation and the United Nations Foundation, along with the Gates, Hewlett, MacArthur and Packard foundations.

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