HIV prevalence among pregnant women has declined from 22% in 2002 to 14% last year.
This is according to the Ministry of Health and Social Services (MoHSS) Executive Director, who welcomed the U.S. Global AIDS Coordinator, Ambassador Dr. John Nkengasong, on a visit to the Katutura State Hospital.
During an engagement with beneficiaries of the Prevention of Mother-to-Child Transmission HIV Programme, Ben Nangombe revealed that 98% of all pregnant women in Namibia attend antenatal care, and more than 90% of them deliver at hospitals.
Antiretroviral therapy coverage among HIV-positive pregnant and breastfeeding mothers stands at 98%, and viral load suppression is around 97%.
"As a result, the rate of mother-to-child transmission has reduced from 13.7% in 2010. The identification of HIV and provisional lifelong ARV among pregnant and breastfeeding women on ARV porfilaxis for their exposed infants has been the backbone of the TCE programme. HIV testing services are offered to all pregnant women who attend ANC, and in recent years, HIV testing among pregnant women has remained as high as 98%."
The Total Control of the Epidemic Programme was introduced in 2005 in Namibia.
It is an approach towards fighting HIV/AIDS amongst rural and underserved population groups and is available in all 14 regions with over 700 staff members, most of them based on the ground.
"When you see the babies with their mothers here, our mission is to support the mothers both to link them to ANC services before birth and after birth, following them for 18 months to make sure they do the right thing so that their babies stay negative, and in 2022, we had a 100% success rate doing that with more than 3000 mothers," said the Managing Director of the Development Aid from People to People, Kirsten Moeller Jensen.
Dr. John Nkengasong, who is the Global AIDS Coordinator, commended Namibia for its achievements in the fight against HIV among pregnant and breastfeeding women.
"There is absolutely no amount of data you put out in public that will drive home what we are seeing here; this is so personal. Remember where we were 20 years ago? They will probably be sitting here with no child or mother because they were born to HIV-infected mothers. This is what it means to offer hope to the people, the community, and the nation; this is nation-building. We are all here to recognise that in as much as one of our priorities for Pepfar is recognising the inequity gaps that exist in the children's population, the adolescent girls and young women, and key populations, this is a clear demonstration of how you are filling that gap."