CUBA-HEALTH Cuba named first country to end mother-to-child HIV transmission

Record ID: 149110

  • Title: CUBA-HEALTH Cuba named first country to end mother-to-child HIV transmission
  • Date: 30th June 2015
  • Summary: HEADLINE THAT READS: "CUBA ELIMINATES THE TRANSMISSION OF HIV FROM MOTHER TO CHILD"
  • Embargoed: 15th July 2015 13:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: Cuba
  • Country: Cuba
  • Topics: General
  • Reuters ID: LVACSIEA8DBZWPA3S8AXWO2HFJIR
  • Aspect Ratio: 16:9
  • Story Text: The World Health Organization on Tuesday (June 30) declared Cuba the first country in the world to eliminate the transmission of HIV and syphilis from mother to child.
    The WHO said in a statement that an international delegation that it and the Pan American Health Organization sent to Cuba in March determined the country met the criteria for the designation. In 2013, only two children in Cuba were born with HIV and five with syphilis, the statement said.
    "Cuba's success demonstrates that universal access and universal health coverage are feasible and indeed are the key to success, even against challenges as daunting as HIV," PAHO Director Carissa Etienne said in the statement.
    During a news conference in Havana, UNICEF representative Anna Lucia d'Emilio said that thanks to Cuba, the world was well on its way to eliminating HIV.
    "For UNICEF, it means that we are in a world that is getting closer to being totally free of HIV. This is our dream and thanks to the efforts that the country (Cuba) has made, they are demonstrating that it is possible," she said.
    Jose Luis Di Fabio of the World Health Organization praised Cuba's health care system.
    "Cuba has the diagnostic measures, it has the health system that permits all mothers to be identified, tested and in the event of testing positive, universal access to the anti-retrovirals. Therefore, this has demonstrated that we have stopped the vertical transmission. In those terms, Cuba has followed the strategy in the treatment of both HIV and syphillis in pregnant women. This is the opportunity to celebrate and one more demonstration that the Cuban health system works," he said.
    Cuba's Communist government considers its free healthcare a major achievement of the 1959 revolution, although ordinary Cubans complain of a decline in standards since the fall of the Soviet Union, the country's former benefactor, in 1991.
    The PAHO and WHO credited Cuba with offering women early access to prenatal care, HIV and syphilis testing, and treatment for mothers who test positive. The two organizations began an effort to end congenital transmission of HIV and syphilis in Cuba and other countries in the Americas in 2010.
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