The Power Of ARVs

Antiretroviral medication (ARVs) works to keep HIV from growing and multiplying within the human body.

With access to ARVs, people living with HIV can not only lead healthy and productive lives, but they can pass on healthy lives to their unborn children. Thanks to the support of government, private, and public sectors, this life-saving medication now costs as little as 30 cents a day. Without ARVs, an HIV-positive mother can have up to a 45% chance of transmitting the virus to her unborn child, but when that same mother receives properly administered treatment during pregnancy, birth, and breastfeeding, the rate of transmission can be reduced to less than 5%. While there have been significant reductions in the spread and transmission of HIV, there are still over 600 babies being born every day with a preventable virus.

We must act now to get that number close to zero.