Swaziland
Swaziland is one of the five countries with the highest HIV rates in the world. The current national adult prevalence rate of HIV infection is 33%, and the HIV prevalence rate among pregnant women rose from 4% in 1992, to 43% in 2004.
Despite these extreme circumstances, Swaziland’s Global Fund-financed HIV/AIDS program has achieved impressive results since its inception in August 2003.
In Swaziland, (RED) money is supporting Global Fund-financed programs, which have already:
- reached over 4,400 mothers with services to prevent mother-to-child-transmission of HIV
- trained over 150 midwives and doctors in the prevention of mother-to-child transmission of HIV
- equipped over 40 hospitals to provide services to prevent mother-to-child transmission of HIV
- reached over 140,000 people with voluntary counseling and testing for prevention of HIV
- trained over 70 counselors to teach prevention of HIV
- set up over 35 counseling and testing centers for prevention of HIV
- established feeding schemes in 335 schools
- built 154 community feeding centers
- provided education support for over 36,000 vulnerable children
- provided anti-retroviral therapy for HIV/AIDS to almost 15,000 patients
- trained over 3,000 health workers to deliver home-based care for patients with HIV/AIDS
In the next two to three years, these programs aim to increase four-fold the number of women receiving treatment to prevent mother-to-child transmission of HIV, to offer comprehensive support for orphans and to more than double the number of people currently on antiretroviral therapy.
