Thailand has become the first country in Asia to eliminate mother-to-child transmission of HIV and syphilis, the World Health Organization announced Tuesday.
The milestone is another step in Thailand’s aggressive campaign to reduce new cases of the AIDS virus, but experts warn many other problems still exist – including a rising rate of new HIV infections among gay men and transgender people.
The number of babies contracting HIV dropped from more than 3,000 in the late 1990s to 86 in 2015, a figure that was validated to meet WHO’s criteria for elimination – mother-to-child transmission rates of less than 2 percent and fewer than 50 new infections in 100,000 births.
Cuba became the first country to reach the goal last year. Along with Thailand, Belarus eliminated the mother-to-child spread of HIV and syphilis, Armenia did for HIV and Moldova did for syphilis, the WHO announced Tuesday.
Globally, 220,000 new cases of HIV were recorded in babies in 2014, and syphilis caused some 200,000 stillbirths and neonatal deaths in 2012.