Today's Presidential Action

President Bush announced a new $500 million International Mother and Child HIV Prevention Initiative that seeks to prevent the transmission of HIV/AIDS from mothers to infants and to improve health care delivery in Africa and the Caribbean.

Through a combination of improving care and drug treatment and building the healthcare delivery capacity, this new effort is expected to reach up to one million women annually and reduce mother to child transmission by forty percent within five years or less in twelve African countries and the Caribbean.

This Initiative will complement the efforts of the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria, and represents the next essential step in the global struggle against AIDS.

The International Mother and Child HIV Prevention Initiative

The Initiative focuses on treatment and care for HIV infected pregnant women to reduce transmission of HIV/AIDS to infants.

The Initiative is focused in two areas: (1) increasing the availability of preventive care, including drug treatments; and (2) building healthcare delivery systems to reach as many women as possible with the care they need.