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October 2003 Protecting Newborns from HIV Infection By 1998, the need to provide health workers with practical guidance on how to help HIV positive mothers prevent transmission of the virus to their babies was clear. Every year more than 700,000 infants worldwide contract HIV through mother-to-child transmission. To address this virtual pandemic within a pandemic, the Horizons program† joined forces with the Kenya PMCT†† Project, UNICEF, and the Regional AIDS Training Network to create the PMCT Training Curriculum. USAID funded this collaborative initiative. The PMCT training guide was published in 2002 following several years of testing, feedback, and revision. The ten-day curriculum covers epidemiology and prevention strategies, maternal nutrition and preparation for breastfeeding, child nutrition, counseling skills for prevention of mother-to-child transmission, and community involvement. It is being disseminated free of charge around the globe as a CD-ROM and as a downloadable file from the Council’s Web site at www.popcouncil.org/pdfs/horizons/pmcttc/pmcttc.pdf. The manual has been used by the Network for AIDS Research in East and Southern Africa (NARESA), Family Health International, and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to train health workers in PMCT services. As the main implementing partner of the Kenya PMCT Project, NARESA has trained more than 600 health care workers through its participation in the development of the curriculum. In addition, the UN Interagency Task Force on PMTCT has selected the Kenya curriculum to train leaders for workshops throughout the region, and NARESA and Horizons led the first international workshop using the manual. Health workers, community leaders, organizations for people living with HIV/AIDS, and governmental and nongovernmental program managers who are gaining hands-on experience with the curriculum are being encouraged to share their observations and suggestions for inclusion in future editions of the training manual.† Horizons is a research collaboration funded by the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) and directed by the Population Council with six partners: the International Center for Research on Women, the International HIV/AIDS Alliance, the Program for Appropriate Technology in Health, Tulane University, Family Health International, and Johns Hopkins University. More information about Horizons is available at www.popcouncil.org/horizons. †† PMCT and PMTCT are both acronyms for "preventing mother-to-child transmission" of HIV. See Also
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