The Foundation's Work in Mozambique Highlighted on NPR
Posted by
Robert Yule
Washington, D.C.
July 7, 2011
Yesterday NPR’s program All Things Considered aired its third installment from
Mozambique on maternal and child health – this time focusing on preventing mother-to-child transmission of HIV.
Lucrecia Silva and her daughter, Helena, are both
HIV-positive. They wait as a nurse in Macia writes a
prescription for Helena's anti-retroviral drugs.
(Photo: Andrea Hsu/NPR)
Host Melissa Block reported from a health clinic supported by the Foundation in the southern town of Macia. HIV rates are high in the surrounding province of Gaza. It’s estimated that about thirty percent of women there are HIV-positive.
Melissa spoke to Foundation Country Director Dr. Nancy Fitch about our efforts to reach all pregnant women who are living with HIV – both to improve their own health and to protect their babies from getting the virus.
She also met several mothers at the clinic receiving HIV services, including their test results. One of the mothers, Adele, receives difficult news. She learns that day that she is HIV-positive. But she also learns that with the right regimen of medicines, the risk of passing on the virus to her baby can be reduced to less than 5%.
Click here to read and listen to the rest of the story, and
click here for the entire NPR series, called “Beginnings.”
NPR also reported on another of the Foundation’s priorities, preventing transmission of HIV through breastfeeding. In countries like Mozambique, lack of access to safe drinking water or infant formula makes breastfeeding a dangerous proposition. In low-income countries, babies also need the nutrients and antibodies from their mothers’ milk to ward off both disease and malnutrition.
Click here to learn how the use of antiretroviral drugs for mothers and babies during the breastfeeding period can substantially reduce the risk of HIV transmission, and ensure that infants surivive the first years of life.
Melissa also met mothers and children in Macia who are living with HIV, but are kept healthy by treatment.
Click here to read first-person testimonials from children about what it’s like to grow up with HIV in Mozambique.
And watch the video below for a conversation with Dr. Nancy Fitch about the Foundation’s efforts to fight pediatric AIDS in Mozambique.
Robert Yule is the Foundation’s Senior Media Relations Manager, based in Washington, D.C.