MAPUTO, Mozambique, August 23, 2005 (IslamOnline.net) – Already fighting a high HIV prevalence, Mozambique has moved in cooperation with world bodies to nip the deadly virus in the bud by trying to prevent its transmission from HIV-positive pregnant mothers to fetuses.

“We are trying here in Mozambique an effective US-tested drug that prevented mother-to-fetus transmission during the first three months of pregnancy,” Dr. Wafa El-Sadr, chief of the Infectious Disease Department in Columbia University, told IslamOnline.net Tuesday, August 23.

Egyptian-born Sadr said this antiretroviral drug reduces transmission rate by 50 percent.

According to the World Health Organization (WHO), there is a 15–30% risk of transmission of HIV from mother to child during pregnancy, labor and delivery.

Studies have shown that antiretroviral drugs, cesarean delivery and formula feeding reduce the chance of transmission of HIV from mother to child.

Sadr said the government of the United States has allocated $20 million annually for five years to fight AIDS (Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome) in the southeastern African country and eight other countries in AIDS-plagued Africa.

“Part of our Mozambique project is to establish specialized hospitals and medical centers to check up locals and provide different treatment regimens to the infected,” Sadr added.

Africa has been hit harder by the HIV virus than any other continent.

More than 17 million Africans have died from AIDS and another 25 million are HIV positive, approximately 1.9 million of whom are children, according to the Joint UN Program on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS).

Sub-Saharan Africa is home to more than 60% of all people worldwide living with HIV.

Official estimates indicate that some 16 percent of Mozambique's 19 million people are HIV positive.

Mozambique is the third African country with high HIV prevalence after Swaziland and South Africa.

“We are trying here in Mozambique an effective US-tested drug that prevented mother-to-fetus transmission,” said Sadr.

Sadr also stressed the pivotal role played by religion and morality in preventing the spread of the killer epidemic.

“It is easy to recognize that infection rates fall in areas populated by religious people as they abstain from committing forbidden adultery,” she said.

She further said violence against women like rape and forced sexual intercourse help increase HIV rates.

“African men should respect women and stop regarding them as inferior.”

The majority of people infected with HIV, if not treated, develop signs of AIDS within 8-10 years.

However, 1-2% of HIV-infected individuals retain functional immune systems, despite being infected with HIV for a number of years

HIV is transmitted through sexual intercourse, blood transfusion, the sharing of contaminated needles in health care settings and through drug injection, in addition to between mother and infant, during pregnancy, childbirth and breastfeeding.