[Promotional Materials, International Conference on AIDS (13th : 2000 : Durban, South Africa)]

In less than a year, the "Call to Action Project" has established eight sites in six
countries in Sub-Saharan Africa and Thailand. In the first two years, the
goal collectively is to provide counseling and testing to 50,000 mothers,
treating 10,000 mother/infant pairs. These initial sites were identified
through a worldwide competition and selected by an international panel of
doctors dedicated to the prevention of HIV from mother to infant.
"Preventing mother-to-child transmission of HIV is a critical part of
reining in the AIDS epidemic," said Dr. Gordon Perkin, Executive Director,
Global Health Program, at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. "We are
pleased to support this comprehensive effort to decrease maternal
transmission of HIV at birth."
"There is an ethical imperative to reduce the number of babies infected with
HIV," said Dr. Cathy Wilfert, Scientific Director of the Elizabeth Glaser
Pediatric AIDS Foundation.
"The first step is to get antiretroviral interventions to mothers in areas most affected such
as sub-Saharan Africa, where up to 40 percent of pregnant women are infected with HIV.
Additionally, follow-up results of the Nevaripine 012 trial to be presented
at the Durban meeting will demonstrate the sustained benefits to infants
through 18 months of age."
The global HIV/AIDS pandemic has reached staggering proportions and, at
current rates, threatens to transcend all other health problems in the
world. It is estimated that:... Worldwide more than 33 million people are HIV-infected; 95 percent of these people
live in developing nations... Around the world, six million people are newly infected each year - or 16,000 per day... Each year newborns comprise 600,000 of the newly infected... More than 500,000 children die annually from AIDS... Half of new infections are in young people (age 15-24) and 40 percent
are women.

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