6 May 2011

Papua New Guinea scaling up paediatric programme to combat transmission of HIV

1:26 pm on 6 May 2011

The Papua New Guinea government is this year scaling up its paediatric HIV/AIDS programme, with a national strategy to combat parent to child transmission.

Assisting with the programme is the United Nations Children's Fund, UNICEF, and its chief of HIV in PNG, Cristi Morf, says they'll use the example of a hospital in rural Chimbu that's managed to cut the transmission rate from mother to baby to zero.

She says the Catholic Church run Mingende Hospital has had 25 babies born to HIV positive mothers in the past two years, and all the babies have tested negative.

"Globally we would hope to bring the transmission rate as low as one or two percent, but you always expect a few that might slip through. So while we have this example from Mingende, we can showcase it and show the other centres of PNG how it could and is possible."