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CUBA HAS BECOME the first nation in the world to eliminate mother-to-child transmission of HIV and syphilis, according to the World Health Organisation (WHO).
An expert mission sent to the country in March concluded that less than 2% of children with mothers who have HIV are born with the virus.
Dr Margaret Chain, the director-general of WHO, called it “one of the greatest public health achievements possible” and said it was an important step towards achieving an aids-free generation.
Since 2010, Cuba has had increased access to HIV and syphilis testing, prenatal care and breastfeeding alternatives for pregnant women as part of a regional initiative.
Dr Carissa F. Etienne, the director of the Pan American Health Organisation, which oversaw the initiative along with WHO, said the achievement can provide inspiration for other countries.
Cuba’s success demonstrates that universal access and universal health coverage are feasible and indeed are the key to success, even against challenges as daunting as HIV.
An estimated 1.4 million women living with HIV become pregnant every year.
Without treatment, there is a 15-45% chance that they will transmit the virus to their children during pregnancy, labour, delivery or breastfeeding.
The risk drops to just over 1% if antiretroviral medicines are provided to both mothers and children.
The number of children born with HIV every year has reduced from 400,000 in 2009 to 240,000 in 2013, according to WHO.
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Somebody being murdered is not “antics”.
I saw Coveney & Vradkar in Boots yesterday
@3monkey: lol old arsenic and lace..
I get some of those symptoms when I eat the wife’s dinners. She’s either a bad cook, or genuinely tryin’ to get rid of me.
@Paul Culligan: So you didn’t read the instructions when you purchased the goods…..
She does the shopping as well Chris, so I’m caught either way.
Joffreys death on Game of Thrones made it cool again!
Wait! Joffrey dies…., ah here… spoiler alert! Although it’s game of thrones so it’s probably more shocking if a character actually doesn’t get killed….
The borgias used to take small quantities of poison over time till the built up resistance to it. Then when they invited victims to a meal they could all eat the same food and only the guests would die
Second most deadly poison in the world is platytoxin from zoanthids, a species related to coral and anemones and which is an hazard to marine aquarium keepers, coming in on coral frags. A single gram is enough to to kill 300,000 mice, or 80 people.
Or even pure nicotine, a favourite of the assassins of the Court of Louis Roi du Soleil, who would coat their dagger blades with it, knowing that their victim need only sustain a slight nick to be killed. The deadly poison, there’s enough in a single cigarette to kill several, if it be extracted and administered direct to the blood, suppresses the respiratory system and kills within minutes.
End of the day it could have been a lot of things. “Tout est poison, rien n’est pas poison. La poison c’est la dose.” Paracelsus.
Btw smoking a cigarette doesn’t kill one (short-term) because the absorption of nicotine through the cheek cells allows the body to metabolise the tiny amounts before it kills. Not so with direct injection or administration via an open wound.
By bottle or by tongue, a joke about malicious gossip lol. But the Romans use to carry arsenic into battle incase they lost the battle as they could retreat and dump the arsenic into the wells they came across and that is where poisoning the well expression came from.
http://www.rferl.org/a/wikileaks_cables_add_to_speculation_over_litvinenko/2254821.html
The juice of gone-off prawns has been used to get rid of the occasional inconvenient husband in Asia too. Mixed in with a curry.
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