Maternal and child health(current issue) - Assignment Example

Their focus is mainly on the sub-Saharan Africa where the issue is severe. MTCT is not only a public health issue in U.S. but also in the entire world. Currently, the rate of transmission in U.S. is less than one case on a daily basis while in the sub-Saharan region in Africa, the rate is more than 1000 transmission cases every day. The mothers2mothers (m2m) organization, set up in 2001, has adopted a global campaign to alleviate the situation in both the developed and developing nations. The need to save the lives of the infected mothers and the already infected children while reducing the MTCT of the deadly virus calls for combined efforts (Smalley, 2012).

Infant mortality rate has been raised to disturbingly high levels globally by MTCT of HIV. Cause and Severity of the issue MTCT of HIV is at an all time high globally. The issue is most severe in the sub-Saharan Africa region where 22 nations account for more than 90% of the MTCT of HIV cases in the world. The situation is very serious in this region and it is attributed to the lack of ample prevention programs and resources. Research has indicated that the number of physicians in this region is too low considering the high number of infected mothers and children.

According to statistics released by the WHO, there are approximately 1.4 million pregnant women living with HIV in the sub-Saharan Africa region. 50% of these women do not have any access to the relevant intervention programs to prevent mother to child transmission of HIV. Over 8% of the children of less than 5 years deaths are caused by HIV in the region. This is a very serious case when compared to the Latin America region where there are only approximately 18300 pregnant women with HIV and 64% of them have access to intervention programs to save their children from contracting the virus.

According to the WHO, without employing the intervention programs, the transmission rate ranges from 15-45% (WHO, 2012). The risk factors are enveloped by the lack of ample health facilities in the affected regions in the world. In the sub-Saharan region, the developing nations are faced with the lack of funds. Access to antiretroviral drugs, which lower the transmission rate from mother to child during pregnancy is limited. Lack of awareness is also another great risk factor. Many expectant mothers in the world are not aware that there are possible ways of preventing MTCT of HIV when they are pregnant.

There is also the aspect of ignorance which is fueled by illiteracy among some of the infected mothers. Intervention programs which have been employed in the severely affected regions have not been as successful as expected and this has caused the issue to get worse. Due to lack of finances to provide the best quality antiretroviral drugs for the women in the low income nations, researchers have conducted extensive studies to establish the best combinations of the available drugs to reduce the MTCT of the virus.

Despite these efforts, most of the developing nations have to depend on donors to help the HIV positive pregnant women (Siegfried, van der Murwe, Brocklehurst & Sint, 2011). There are infected women who still insist on breastfeeding their children, making them highly susceptible to the virus after birth. Interventions There are