Advocacy group: Poor resource distribution preventing many pregnant women from receiving ART

More than 370,000 infants are born with HIV each year worldwide. This may largely be due to the fact that only 33% of pregnant women are receiving antiretroviral therapy, according to a report published by the International Treatment Preparedness Coalition.

In the report, leaders of advocacy group said governments and global health organizations may be partly to blame for poor resource coordination and drug distribution. Funding gaps and the tendency to value wealthy women over poor women also may contribute to disparities in antiretroviral therapy (ART) apportioning.

The leaders of the group wrote that most women worldwide are receiving nevirapine, with only about 8% of women in developing countries receiving more effective and less toxic combination therapy.

Many organizations, including the United Nations, were criticized in the report. UNAIDS officials agreed with many of the findings, stating that stigma, fragmented health services, insufficient knowledge of HIV-related topics and poor political leadership may contribute to inadequate ART coverage as well.

The report included some statistics comparing HIV/AIDS rates around the world. For example, the rate of mother-to-child transmission has been reduced by more than 90% in the United States, largely due to a majority of women being provided ART around the time of labor and delivery. Fewer than 150 infants are born with HIV per year in the United States. These figures were compared with numbers from Uganda, where women are not receiving the same preventive care. There are approximately 700,000 women with HIV in Uganda, and as many as 27,300 infants in that country may be born with HIV in 2009, according to findings in the report.