Community dialogue, Zululand, May 2009
Preventing the transmission of HIV from mother to child (PMTCT)
has the potential of saving nearly 40,000 infant lives in South
Africa every year. A national PMTCT programme has existed since
2002, but this has not been performing as well as it could.
In late 2008 SANAC and the National Department of Health began
working on an Accelerated PMTCT Plan. The aim of this plan was to
strengthen the delivery of PMTCT service provision (the supply
side) and the demand for the services in the community (demand
side) in 18 priority health districts identified by the National
Department of Health.
This Accelerated PMTCT Plan, 'The A-Plan' aims to ensure that the
NSP target – of reducing mother-to-child transmission to 5% – is
met. Learning from the 18 priority districts will be phased across
all of South Africa's 52 health districts.
The A-Plan is a first for South Africa as it represents the
combined efforts of civil society organisations and government.
Clinical partners and social mobilisation agencies from civil
society are working on both the supply and demand side of the
programme. The leading agencies here include organisations whose
pilot programmes were funded through MSP.
Read about the A-Plan Critical
Review on November 4 and 5, 2009
Find more PMTCT resources here
Read the full A-Plan [PDF 787KB]
Read about the A-Plan Progress
Meeting on August 26, 2009
Read about MSP-funded PMTCT
programmes
Read about the Maternal and Child
Health Summit on August 25, 2009
