Case study: Mother to child transmission The French Red Cross is helping to prevent mother to unborn child HIV

transmissions (vertical transmissions) through counselling, screening and medical care at daycare centres in African countries. In Pointe-Noire, Congo, a mother-child unit within the HIV/AIDS daycare centre offers testing and counselling to pregnant women. HIV-positive women are offered free care and treatment. Case study: Youth Since 1994 the Red Cross Society of China and the Australian Red Cross have worked on an HIV project in the provinces of Yunnan and Xinjiang. Some 25,000 young people have been reached through peer education, awareness and anti-stigma events. The projects have been selected by UNAIDS as examples of best practice in China.

HIV prevention refers to practices done to prevent the spread of HIV/AIDS. HIV prevention practices may be done by individuals to protect their own health and the health of those in their community, or may be instituted by governments or other organizations as public health policies.

Social strategies[edit source | editbeta]

Social strategies do not require any drug or object to be effective, but rather require persons to change their behavior in order to gain protection from HIV. Some social strategies which people consider include the following

sex education LGBT sex education needle-exchange programmes safe injection sites safe sex serosorting sexual abstinence immigration regulation

Mother-to-child[edit source | editbeta]

Programs to prevent the transmission of HIV from mothers to children can reduce rates of transmission by 9299%.[26][34] This primarily involves the use of a combination of antivirals during pregnancy and after birth in the infant but also potentially include bottle feeding rather than breastfeeding.[34][35] If replacement feeding is acceptable, feasible, affordable, sustainable and safe mothers should avoid breast-feeding their infants however exclusive breast-feeding is recommended during the first months of life if this is not the case. [36] If exclusive breast feeding is carried out the provision of extended antiretroviral prophylaxis to the infant decreases the risk of transmission.[37]

Vaccination[edit source | editbeta]

As of 2012 there is no effective vaccine for HIV or AIDS.[38] A single trial of the vaccine RV 144 published in 2009 found a partial efficacy rate of ~30% and has stimulated optimism in the research community regarding developing a truly effective vaccine.[39] Further trials of the vaccine are ongoing.[40][41]