Improving men's participation in preventing mother-to-child transmission of HIV as a maternal, neonatal, and child health priority in South Africa

Summary Points * Involving male partners in programmes to prevent mother-to-child transmission of HIV may improve programme coverage and infant outcomes. * Rates of male partner involvement remain low worldwide, and detailed guidelines to increase involvement are lacking in South Africa. * We recommend that South African national and provincial guidelines and policies for preventing mother-to-child HIV transmission be adjusted to explicitly include a focus on increasing male partner involvement and that they include concrete descriptions of how to achieve this. * We propose recommendations for improving male partner involvement at a policy, facility, and community level. * Challenges to improving male partner involvement include the nature of relationships and family structures in South Africa and the capacity of health systems to implement recommendations.
Introduction The World Health Organization promotes a four-component strategy for preventing mother-to-child transmission (PMTCT) of HIV: prevent new infections in women; prevent unintended pregnancies among women living with HIV infection; [...]