July 01, 2015

WHO Confirms Cuba Is First Country To Eliminate Mother-to-Child HIV and Syphilis Transmission

The World Health Organization on Tuesday declared Cuba the first country in the world to eliminate the transmission of HIV and syphilis from mother to child.

The WHO said in a statement that an international delegation that it and the Pan American Health Organization sent to Cuba in March determined the country met the criteria for the designation. In 2013, only two children in Cuba were born with HIV and five with syphilis, the statement said.

"Cuba's success demonstrates that universal access and universal health coverage are feasible and indeed are the key to success, even against challenges as daunting as HIV," PAHO Director Carissa Etienne said in the statement.


Cuba's Communist government considers its free healthcare a major achievement of the 1959 revolution, although ordinary Cubans complain of a decline in standards since the fall of the Soviet Union, the country's former benefactor, in 1991.

The PAHO and WHO credited Cuba with offering women early access to prenatal care, HIV and syphilis testing, and treatment for mothers who test positive. The two organizations began an effort to end congenital transmission of HIV and syphilis in Cuba and other countries in the Americas in 2010.

Related article: Overview of HIV/AIDS disease

Source:
Official statement here: WHO validates elimination of mother-to-child transmission of HIV and syphilis in Cuba

1 comment:

  1. IkennaAdimekwe18 July 2015 at 11:04

    Dayo Ajayi-Obe thanks for your comment. I really did not know before reading your comment that the American Medical Association avoids using q.d and q.1.d as once a day abbreviations. It equally makes a lot of sense, following my experience over the years, to simply document once a day doses as o.d or once a day in words.

    In regard to your question on whether "...the intern was taught to use q.d as a once a daily dose at medical school or
    if it was just the intern had come across the term on a google search
    and so was playing smart"; I honestly cannot say for sure because I do not recall anyone going any further to ask him. Our attention at the time was on the nurse and patient. Anyway I would have asked him if he were still around, but this article was written a little more than 2 years ago, and he has since finished his internship training and has not been keeping in touch.

    Finally, like you rightly noted, even though no official statistics on nationwide medication errors is being kept (to the best of my knowledge), errors for Nigeria would understandably be much worse than that in the States; but our duty is to work together
    to prevent them and create safer hospitals and clinic environments
    for our patients. Thank you!

    ReplyDelete

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