Increasing Preventive Treatment and Care

• Where adequate infrastructure exists, administering combination antiretroviral therapy to the mother beginning in the second trimester, and treating the mother and child following birth.
• Where adequate infrastructure does not exist, administering a single dose of nevirapine to the mother at the time of delivery and at least one dose to the infant shortly after birth.
• Where capacity allows, providing care and treatment to eligible family members.
• As appropriate, supporting safer breastfeeding practices, replacement feeding or early weaning for infants after birth.

Building Healthcare Delivery Systems

• Hospital/clinics twinning. Pairing U.S. hospitals and clinics with African and Caribbean counterparts, facilitating the training of personnel and implementation of prevention, care and treatment programs.
• Volunteer medical and nursing training corps. Attracting, recruiting and helping place volunteer medical professionals in these countries to develop professional capacity at the local level. Recruiting and paying African medical and graduate students to provide testing, treatment and care.
• Supporting NGOs and governments to help expand existing activities and create new public-private partnerships aimed at significantly reducing MTCT and helping families.

The International Mother and Child HIV Prevention Initiative will be funded at $500 million. The Administration is working with Congress to direct $200 million in the supplemental bill to this effort, and will request an additional $300 million in the FY 2004 budget. The initial countries proposed for this Initiative are:

Africa -- Botswana, Cote d?Ivoire, Ethiopia, Kenya, Mozambique, Rwanda, South Africa and Uganda. In FY 2004, the program expands to Namibia, Nigeria, Tanzania, and Zambia
Caribbean -- Guyana, Haiti and regional efforts though the Caribbean Regional Epidemiological Center (CAREC).

The Initiative is scaleable so that it could be expanded within these countries or to additional countries globally at a future time.