UNICEF, Myanmar Government Launch Program to Prevent Mother-to-Child HIV Transmission

UNICEF and the Myanmar government on Monday launched a program in the country's 10 largest hospitals to prevent mother-to-child HIV transmission, UNICEF announced on Tuesday, the AP/Yahoo! News reports. The program gradually will be extended to facilities throughout Myanmar, which also is known as Burma, to increase access to HIV/AIDS prevention and treatment services for pregnant women and their infants, UNICEF said in a statement. According to Carroll Long, the UNICEF country representative for Myanmar, at least 10,000 HIV-positive women in the country become pregnant annually, giving birth to at least 3,000 HIV-positive infants. UNICEF spends an average of $2 million annually to support HIV/AIDS prevention and treatment programs in Myanmar. The Myanmar government says more than 300,000 of the country's 54 million people are HIV-positive, but UNAIDS estimates that more than 600,000 people ages 15 to 49 in Myanmar are living with the disease, according to the AP/Yahoo! News (AP/Yahoo! News, 5/17).

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