In Malawi, over 26,000 children are born with HIV each year

Henok Fente

In Malawi, over 26,000 children are born with HIV each year

She says the health workers can counsel and test the mothers so that if they are infected they will be able prevent their unborn babies from being HIV-positive.

Mothers are also looked after to make sure they maintain preventive medical treatment.

Susan Chakwiya is an HIV-positive mother who has given birth to an HIV-negative baby.

"The beauty about the project is that when the babies are born, healthcare providers follow them up and keep on educating [them] to make sure we continue exclusively breast-feed them for at least six months before they start introducing other foods.”

The CTA project Assessment Report released in September cites shortage of medical personnel, lack of infrastructure and reluctance of men to go for HIV testing as major huddles in the fight. But Mbetu is optimistic that the battle will be won.

“Nothing will stop us. We are also looking at supporting the ministry of health at the national level through working groups where we share our technical expertise and experiences from countries we operate from.”

She says other countries like Botswana and Rwanda have are making considerable headway in reducing the pediatric HIV infection rate.

The rate in Malawi has stabilized at 12 percent, a two percent reduction from 2007.

The permanent secretary for nutrition and HIV and AIDS in the Office of the President and Cabinet, Dr. Mary Shawa, praised the project, saying it has contributed a great deal to the government’s four-year Pediatric HIV Care Scale-up Plan, which seeks to curtail new infection rates.

She says its goal is eliminate mother-to-child transmission and reduce new infection rates among sexually active people to almost two percent by 2015.