Protection of the African Child against HIV Infection

Abstract

Summary: The problems of the African child with HIV infection potentials are quite unique because of the global increase in the incidence of HIV infection and the increased birth rate in the poverty-strickens parts of Africa with high inother-to-infant transmission rate of HIV infection. AIDS is still an incurable disease and very costly in controlling; therefore, health work- en ers should direct their efforts towards prevention and health education. It is possi ble to adopt very basic and routine procedures to protect the African newborn from mother-to-child HIV contamination; these include the disinfection of the birth be passage during labour, mandatory elective caesarean section on all infected moth- boala ers, the avoidance of episiotomy and invasive traumatic procedures across the placental barrier or on the foetus and heat sterilization of breast milk. It appears that the hope for chemoprophylaxis against AIDS in Africa in the nearest future is very slim in view of the current astronomical pricing mechanism. This pessimism regarding drugs should, hopefully, not apply to vaccines. Ethical principles of justice require that those who bear the risks of the trials, should have a commen surate share in the benefits of any effective vaccine. Africa has constituted a fertile ground for most HIV vaccine trials and therefore the people should be given first access to the vaccine. Manufacturers of the vaccines should indefinitely make the A vaccine available free, or at least, at substantially reduced prices to the citizens of the host countries. Perhaps, there is wisdom in suggesting a pricing system in which the rich industrialised countries effectively subsidize the distribution of the vaccines in the developing nations.