Southern Africa: A winning recipe for mother-child transmission of HIV

A success story, at last: Botswana has lowered the rate of mother-to-child transmission of HIV to less than four per cent, coming close to developed countries that have almost eliminated paediatric Aids. In Europe and the USA, fewer than two per cent of babies with HIV-positive mothers are born with the virus; without intervention, the risk of an HIV-positive pregnant woman passing on the virus to her baby is between 30 and 35 per cent, according to health specialists.