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posted by janrinok on Wednesday July 01 2015, @08:39PM   Printer-friendly
from the they-are-thinking-of-the-children! dept.

The BBC reports

Cuba has successfully eliminated mother-to-child transmission of both HIV and syphilis, the World Health Organization (WHO) says. The head of the WHO, Dr Margaret Chan, called it one of the greatest public health achievements possible. It follows years of efforts to give pregnant women early access to prenatal care, testing and drugs to stop these diseases passing from mother to child.
...
In Cuba, according to the available official data, less than 2% of children whose mothers have HIV are born with the virus - the lowest rate possible with the available prevention methods.

Untreated, they have a 15-45% chance of transmitting the virus to their children during pregnancy, labour, delivery or breastfeeding.

Kudos to Cuba!


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  • (Score: 4, Funny) by VLM on Wednesday July 01 2015, @09:37PM

    by VLM (445) Subscriber Badge on Wednesday July 01 2015, @09:37PM (#203969)

    less than 2% of children whose mothers have HIV are born with the virus

    But how would that work in practice, if its a percentage of HIV kids and not a total number of HIV kids.

    I guess they could fudge the HIV kids stats for a couple years, but eventually someone is going to start asking questions when 99% of pediatric cuban aids patients are assigned IV drug use or gay sex as the cause of their HIV infection, yet the sick kids are only like 4.

    Its believable they'd want to fudge the numbers as much as an American MBA businessman, but it looks like it would be super difficult to keep the numbers fudged in the long run.

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  • (Score: 3, Informative) by frojack on Thursday July 02 2015, @02:07AM

    by frojack (1554) on Thursday July 02 2015, @02:07AM (#204051) Journal

    But how would that work in practice,

    Abort those kids that would have been born with HIV?
    The wording is pretty vague, and apparently the only criteria is on the words "are born".

    The real miracle here is probably western drugs, imported somehow, or manufactured in-country with (justifiable IMHO) disregard of any patents that might exit. 9 months worth of anti-virals followed by no-breast feeding is how this is accomplished in most western countries.

    --
    No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 02 2015, @07:00AM

      by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 02 2015, @07:00AM (#204121)

      or manufactured in-country with (justifiable IMHO) disregard of any patents that might exit

      I wouldn't be surprised if the US boycott of Cuba means that US medical companies are not allowed - by US law - to take out patents in Cuba.

  • (Score: 2) by Jiro on Thursday July 02 2015, @06:11AM

    by Jiro (3176) on Thursday July 02 2015, @06:11AM (#204118)

    Even if it is actually true, it proves very little. Dictatorships, not being subject to the free market, can always pick one arbitrary facet of their society, spend disproportionately on it even if their overall economy is a shambles, and point to its success as evidence of the great benefits of their dictatorship. That's part of the reason (aside from massive cheating with steroids) why East Germany got such successes at the Olympics, for instance, and why North Korea can build huge architectural projects.

    • (Score: 2) by monster on Friday July 03 2015, @05:17PM

      by monster (1260) on Friday July 03 2015, @05:17PM (#204791) Journal

      It may be a shock to you, but Cuba has free elections, and even candidates of the opposition [foxnews.com] recognising them to be fair.

      It's not so black and white as it's usually shown.