prevented if two conditions are met: 1) Pregnant women are identified as carriers before labor has begun; 2) Caesarian session is made and appropriate therapy is begun for carrier mothers and /or their offspring.

In October 2005, RVF began an ambitious nationwide program in Georgia to protect the vulnerable population of neonates from acquiring HIV/AIDS from their mothers. Based on the successful program in Georgia, RVF launched an HIV/AIDS screening program in Azerbaijan in early 2009. Working collaboratively with the ministries of health in each country, the RVF has provided training and print materials to enable the country’s health care workers to perform rapid diagnostic screening for HIV/AIDS for the entire cohort of pregnant women. Women are tested at their first prenatal check-up. If rapid screening is positive, more extensive and definitive testing is performed at national testing centers. This definitive testing, funded by the MOH, identifies women who will receive effective antiretroviral treatment of HIV/AIDS (financed by the Global Fund) to prevent the transmission of the virus to their babies. Transmission rates are known to fall from 25% to less than 4% for HIV/AIDS when the program is successfully implemented. The RVF donated special surgical kits to maternity hospitals for the performance of Caesarian sections..

As with all RVF-supported programs, the HIV/AIDS screening program is implemented entirely through the existing public health infrastructure by local health care workers, so that from the very start the ministries of health and local healthcare workers have full ownership of the programs. The programs have been earmarked by the ministers of health for continued funding by government sources beginning in 2010 in Georgia and in 2011 in Azerbaijan. This requirement of sustainability is an inherent part of all RVF programs.

As of April, 2009, 170,485 pregnant women had been screened for HIV and 34 HIV-positive pregnant women had been identified. As of December 2008, 34 HIV-positive pregnant women had given birth, and 24 newborns of these HIV-positive mothers are free of HIV.