CMMB’s Born to Live (BTL) Program has been a leader in Kenya’s PMTCT efforts since its origins in 2001.
Working through faith-based organizations, Born to Live utilizes a multi-faceted clinical and psychosocial approach to reduce HIV incidence among children and families. This process includes providing counselling and testing to pregnant women, short-course ARVs to prevent transmission during delivery and post-natal follow up for the infant and HIV-positive mothers.
This program reduces the risk
of transmission of the HIV virus, and expands
the availability of antiretroviral drug therapies
for HIV-positive mothers and their afflicted
children. Born to Live clinics are active today
in Haiti, India, Kenya, Papua New Guinea, and Swaziland. The program
combines voluntary counseling and testing of
expectant mothers with administration of the
drug nevirapine prior to and following delivery,
to help prevent mother-to-child transmission
(PMTCT) of HIV.
In FY2009 CMMB and its partners treatment to 71,057 pregnant women, placed 2,719 on short course medicines and provided life-long treatment to 590 eligible women at 148 sites.
Many Born
to Live clinics are
operating within hospitals and other facilities
operated by CMMB’s faith-based partners,
including the Kenya Episcopal Conference, the
Christian Health Association of Kenya, the Catholic
National Secretariat of Papua New Guinea and
Solomon Islands, the Catholic Bishops’ Conference
of India and the Southern African Catholic Bishops’ Conference.
Born to Live is supported by several United States Government agencies, including Centers for Disease Control and United States Agency for International Development.
Catholic Medical
Mission Board is a non-profit, religious, 501 (c) (3) organization
that provides services and deliver aid without regard to creed, race,
sex, or national or political circumstance. Catholic Medical Mission
Board is a non-governmental organization in consultative status with
the Economic and Social Council (ESOSOC) of the United Nations. Gifts are deducibel to the full extent allowable under IRS regulations.
