AIDS conference commends four countries for anti-AIDS efforts

Four countries were commended at an AIDS conference for reducing mother to child transmission of HIV by making the appropriate drugs readily available, AFP reported on Monday. The four countries - Botswana, Brazil, Thailand and Uganda - were presented with awards at the opening of the third conference on Global Strategies for the Prevention of HIV Transmission from Mothers to Infants, which began on Sunday in the Ugandan capital, Kampala. Botswana was honoured for initiating two pilot programmes on mother-to-child transmission in 1999 providing the antiretroviral drug AZT free to all HIV-positive pregnant women. The project has been extended to half of the country’s districts. Brazil’s policy of providing AZT free to all HIV-infected mothers and infants attending public hospitals was also lauded. And in 1999, the Thai government started a policy to ensure that all pregnant women would be provided with voluntary counselling and testing for HIV, as well as AZT for HIV-infected women and health care for their babies. Uganda was also praised for reducing HIV prevalence from 18.5 percent in 1995 to 8.3 percent in 1999.