Prevention of mother-to-child transmission of HIV infection

In resource-rich settings, virtual elimination of mother-to-child transmission is theoretically possible. Even in these settings, however, a substantial number of infected women are not being identified early enough for optimum application of prevention of mother-to-child transmission interventions. In developing country settings, focus is being directed towards scaling-up prevention programmes now that trials have established a variety of effective antiretroviral prophylactic approaches.