Essential Knowledge

The Essential Knowledge section of this toolkit is an effort to provide policy makers, program managers, and service providers with the key, or “essential,” background and reference materials on the prevention of mother-to-child transmission (PMTCT) of HIV. These essential resources are up-to-date, accurate and evidence-based, and they include materials such as fact sheets, research reports and information briefs.

In a recent effort to scale up PMTCT in resource-constrained settings, UNAIDS has received global consensus in calling for the elimination of mother-to-child transmission (MTCT) of HIV by 2015. This shift in strategy- from prevention to elimination- aims to ensure that less than 5% of children born to women with HIV become infected with HIV. This will lead to a 90% reduction of new HIV infections among children under 15 by 2015 (using 2009 as a baseline). To read more on this call to action and shift from prevention of MTCT to elimination of MTCT, see the resources in the Overview of PMTCT section of the toolkit, including UNAIDS Global Plan.

This section will be updated periodically to reflect new research findings and programmatic knowledge. If you'd like to suggest a resource or comment about this section please visit our discussion board.

 

Overview of PMTCT (8 resources)

The transmission of HIV from an HIV-positive mother to her child during pregnancy, labor, delivery or breastfeeding is called mother-to-child transmission. In the absence of any interventions transmission rates range from 15-45%. Despite significant efforts and achievements in PMTCT over the past decade, approximately 430,000 children worldwide become newly infected with HIV each year. In this section of the toolkit you'll find resources that provide an overview of the burden of PMTCT worldwide, setting the context for policies, programs and services intended to address the need for PMTCT. Also included here are reports and briefs highlighting progress made and challenges that remain in scaling up services as well as reports on global initiatives and goals to eliminate mother-to-child transmission of HIV.

    PMTCT Strategies (15 resources)

    The globally accepted strategy for comprehensive prevention of mother-to-child transmission of HIV includes four elements or prongs: 1) Primary prevention of HIV infection, 2) Preventing unintended pregnancies in women with HIV, 3) Preventing vertical transmission or HIV transmission from women to their infants, and 4) Providing care, treatment and support for mothers with HIV and their children.

      Integrating and Scaling Up PMTCT (11 resources)

      There are many opportunities for integrating healthcare services to more effectively and efficiently provide services that promote PMTCT. For example, HIV services such as counseling and testing can be integrated with maternal and child health services or family planning services. Integration of family planning and HIV services offers opportunities to reach more women with life-saving services such as contraception, HIV prevention counseling, and antiretroviral therapy. This section of the toolkit includes briefs and reports supporting the case for integration of services, scaling up services, approaches for integrating and scaling up services, and programmatic examples.

        PMTCT Research (3 resources)

        As the global HIV/AIDS epidemic continues basic science, clinical, translational, programmatic and operations research efforts focus on better understanding transmission, prevention, treatment and care for those at risk for or infected with HIV. In this section of the toolkit you'll find a selection of resources on current research efforts and recommendations for advancing the HIV research agenda.