In honor of World Aids Day, which happens to be tomorrow, and Brenna\u2019s presentation last Monday, I was doing a little reading about HIV\/AIDS and PMTCT. It\u2019s amazing to read how far we have come in the past 20 years against fighting this virus. Even though we still have a ways to go before eliminating it, it\u2019s amazing to think what impact has already been made. Even \u201cUNICEF believes that the elimination of mother-to-child transmission of HIV is possible by 2015, this means reducing the MTCT rate to below 5% and the number of children contracting HIV from their mothers by 90%\u201d (Mbabazi, 2014). I couldn\u2019t help but think about how we can start to make a similar impact on maternal health and why it is so difficult to raise awareness about this general problem seen globally. Why is it that everyone knows what the red and pink ribbons are for, but they can\u2019t seem to remember what the white ribbon is for? What can we do to change this? What if there was an organization that helped to draw attention to safe motherhood on the coattails of other causes that reach peoples attention. Maternal health is affected by most health situations and so why not have a group that highlights how the big things affect maternal health?<\/p>\n
I looked up online top 10 global health issues and came across this article titled \u201cTop 10 Global Health Issues to Watch in 2014.\u201d The top three were 1) Youth, 2) The lasting damage of war, and 3) Universal health coverage. We have talked about all of these things throughout the semester. It is clear to me that maternal health is embedded throughout all global health aspects. What can we do to highlight this fact to the rest of the world?<\/p>\n
Mbabazi, D. (November, 2014). World Aids Day: How effective is PMTCT? The New<\/i>Times. <\/i>Retrieved from http:\/\/www.newtimes.co.rw\/section\/article\/2014-11-24\/183346\/<\/p>\n
Top 10 Global Health Issues to Watch in 2014. (January, 2014). IntraHealth\u00a0<\/i>International<\/i>. Retrieved from http:\/\/www.intrahealth.org\/page\/top-10-global-health-issues-to-watch-in-2014<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
In honor of World Aids Day, which happens to be tomorrow, and Brenna\u2019s presentation last Monday, I was doing a little reading about HIV\/AIDS and PMTCT. It\u2019s amazing to read how far we have come in the past 20 years … Continue reading