Seizing the big missed opportunity: linking HIV and maternity care services in sub-Saharan Africa

Nel Druce (HLSP Institute) and Anne Nolan (Options) 2007.

The article outlines the challenges of integrating HIV and maternal and child health services, and looks at emerging success stories.

While pilot and demonstration projects have been successful, progress in scaling up prevention of mother-to-child transmission (PMTCT) remains slow, constrained by policy, financing and institutional barriers, and weak co-ordination and leadership. Maternal health services face human and financial resource shortages, and these affect their capacity to integrate HIV prevention. At the same time both HIV and maternal health programmes often receive targeted financial and technical assistance that does not take the other into account.

However, countries such as Botswana, Kenya and Rwanda have shown that progress can be made, and constraints can be overcome.

Published in: Reproductive Health Matters, Vol. 15, No. 30, pp. 190-201, November 2007 (abstract only - subscription required),

This article draws on two reviews commissioned by the UK Department for International Development in 2006–2007.