What’s new: China aims to eliminate mother-to-child transmission of HIV, syphilis and hepatitis B by 2025, as these infectious diseases raise the risk of newborns dying and requiring lifelong treatment, according to the National Health Commission (NHC).
By 2025, the country hopes to reduce the rate of HIV transmission from infected mothers to their children to under 2% and hepatitis B transmission to 1% or less, according to an NHC statement published Dec. 30. It also aims to reduce the number of babies infected with congenital syphilis — also caused by mother-to-child transmission — to 50 or fewer per 100,000 live births.
These targets meet the certification criteria set by the World Health Organization (WHO) for eliminating mother-to-child transmission of these viruses.
The background: Nearly 20,000 Chinese people died from AIDS in 2021, making it the most deadly statutory infectious disease reported to authorities that year, government data showed. Syphilis and hepatitis B killed 30 and 413 people, respectively, in 2021.
In a paper published last November, experts from the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention said that without prevention and treatment, about 35% of children infected with HIV will die within a year of birth, and more than half will die before age 3.
The paper said syphilis or hepatitis B will also put the health of newborns at risk and could even cause them to develop liver cancer.
As of March, 16 countries and territories had been certified by the WHO as having successfully eliminated mother-to-child transmission of HIV or syphilis, or both. At the 75th World Health Assembly in Switzerland last May, a WHO proposal was adopted to eliminate mother-to-child transmission of at least one of these three diseases in 100 countries by 2030.
Contact reporter Wang Xintong (xintongwang@caixin.com) and editor Bertrand Teo (bertrandteo@caixin.com)
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