PHNOM PENH, Apr. 19, 2011 (Xinhua) -- Cambodia's Ministry of Health set the target to reduce HIV/AIDs infection rate from mothers to children from the current 8 percent to 5 percent by 2015 and as low as 2 percent by 2020, said a senior health official on Tuesday.
Mean Chhivun, the director-general of Cambodia's National Center for HIV/AIDS, Dermatology and Sexually Transmitted Infections (STIs), said that the target was set following the increasing rate of pregnant women who have their blood tested for the virus in the last three years from 30 percent to more than 80 percent by 2010.
He added that last year, 170,000 pregnant women had their blood tested for HIV/AIDS and it found that 0.3 percent, or 510 of them have HIV/AIDS.
"The prevalence rate of pregnant women contracting with HIV/ AIDS is low," he said.
"Thus, with the participation from pregnant women themselves and the efforts by the Ministry of Health with financial and technical supports from donors, I believe that Cambodia could achieve its target," he said.
He added that important measures to achieve the target included the increase of blood test, the education of pregnant women with HIV/AIDs to prevent themselves from infecting other dermatology and Sexually Transmitted Infections and strengthening health officials' ability to take care of them in pre-and-post-birth phases.
Currently, the country has 58,200 people living with HIV/AIDS, of them, 42,799 people have received anti-retroviral drugs.
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