Role of Mothers’ Awareness of HIV Status in Prevention of Mother-to-Child Transmission

Current guidelines on HIV prevention conflict over whether oral exposure to HIV positive blood is a risk for transmission. This issue is especially important for young children, because, 30–80% of people infected with HIV have at least one oral manifestation, withthemost frequently occurring onesoften bleeding, and children born to HIV infected mothers are often exposed to the blood through multiple ways (e.g. kissing and sharing spoon, cups, or food, etc.).For the present paper, I examined data collected in sub-Saharan Africa from 2000 to 2020 which showed that, the decline in annual new HIV infections in young children was closely correlated with an increase in the proportion of women aware of their HIV status. This findingsuggests that, mothers’ behavioral change (e.g. avoiding kissing and sharing spoon, cups, or food, etc.) due to awareness of their HIV status played an important role in prevention of mother-to-child transmission, and testing for HIV should bepursuedfor all pregnant womenin high prevalence areas.