THE Ministry of Health and the United Nations Children’s Fund are planning to launch a program at six big hospitals later this year aimed at preventing the mother to child transmission of the human immunodeficiency virus, which causes AIDS.

The program, the first of its kind, will involve the Central Women’s and North Okkalapa hospitals in Yangon, the Central Women’s and 300 Bed hospitals in Mandalay, and the Taunggyi and Myitkyina hospitals.

Pregnant women who seek antenatal care at the hospitals will be told about the voluntary counselling and testing services available to them, Dr Daw Aye Aye Mon, a UNICEF project officer, told Myanmar Times last week.

Dr Daw Aye Aye Mon said the main advantage of the program is that it would reach large numbers of pregnant women. She said Yangon Central Women’s Hospital alone provided services to up to 10,000 pregnant women a year.

The hospitals would be assessed in June for the equipment and staff training needed to implement the program, she said.

The training courses will begin later in the year and include voluntary counselling as well as testing procedures.

UNICEF would supply the hospitals with drugs and equipment needed to ensure the safe delivery of women with HIV.

Dr Daw Aye Aye Mon said women who tested positive for HIV would be given a single dose of nevaripine before delivery and their child 24 hours after birth.

The treatment regime is effective in preventing mother to child HIV transmission.

She said UNICEF also planned to provide each of the hospitals with a US$100,000 machine that can detect the virus in month-old babies. The tests would cost $50 to $100 each.

Dr Daw Aye Aye Mon said knowing as soon as possible whether a child was HIV positive was important. An early response was in the best interests of both the child and the mother.

Care and support services would be provided for any infected mothers and children, she said.

In collaboration with the Ministry of Health, UNICEF launched a community-based prevention of mother to child HIV transmission program in 2000 on a trial basis in two townships. It was extended to 12 townships by 2002 and 22 townships by the end of last year.

Of 31,547 pregnant women who received antenatal care in the 12 townships from 2000 to 2002, 28,077 received voluntary counselling and 11,750 agreed to be tested.