Global Guidance on Criteria and Processes for Validation: Elimination of Mother-to-Child Transmission of HIV and Syphilis (Second Edition)

In 2014, the World Health Organization (WHO) released the first edition of the Global guidance on criteria and processes for validation: elimination of mother-to-child transmission of HIV and syphilis (EMTCT). In 2015, the Global Validation Advisory Committee for EMTCT was established and, as of October 2017, eleven countries or territories have been validated for achieving elimination of mother-to-child transmission (MTCT) of HIV and/or syphilis as a public health problem. This second edition of the EMTCT global validation guidance document captures the learning from these validation efforts to date, and reflects WHO’s commitment to the global effort to eliminate MTCT of HIV and syphilis, and expand the capacity of maternal and child health services to address vertical transmission of other communicable diseases.

This second edition of the EMTCT global validation guidance document provides standardized processes and consensus-developed criteria to validate EMTCT of HIV and syphilis, and to recognize high-HIV burden countries that have made significant progress on the path to elimination. The guidance places strong emphasis on country-led accountability, rigorous analysis, intensive programme assessment and multilevel collaboration, including the involvement of communities of women living with HIV.