successfully prevented if two conditions are met: 1) Pregnant women are identified as carriers before labor has begun; 2) Appropriate therapy is begun for carrier mothers and /or their offspring.

In October 2006, the RVF began an ambitious nationwide program in Georgia to protect the vulnerable population of neonates from the ravages of chronic hepatitis B infection. After the success of the Georgian program, the RVF launched a hepatitis B screening program in Azerbaijan in early 2009 and in Armenia in the fall of 2009. Working collaboratively with the local ministries of health, the RVF is providing the training and materials which enable the country’s health care workers to perform rapid diagnostic screening for hepatitis B. Women are tested at their first prenatal check-up. If rapid screening is positive, more extensive and definitive testing is performed in Reference Laboratories. This definitive testing, also funded by the RVF, allows identification of neonates exposed to hepatitis B who will be treated with the combined preventative therapy of vaccine and specific antibody –HBIG. Transmission rates are known to fall from 90% to less than 1% for hepatitis B when the program is successfully implemented. As of March 30, 2010, 188,781 pregnant women had been screened for hepatitis B, 3,717 newborns had been vaccinated with HIBG in Georgia and 48,953 pregnant women had been screened for hepatitis B, 386 newborns had been vaccinated with HIBG in the city of Baku, Azerbaijan.

As with all RVF-supported programs, both programs are being implemented entirely through the existing public health infrastructure by local health care workers, so that from the very start the ministries of health and local healthcare workers have full ownership of the programs. The programs have been endorsed by the ministers of health for continued funding by government sources beginning in July 2011 in Georgia, 2011 in Azerbaijan, and 2012 in Armenia. This requirement of sustainability is an inherent part of all RVF programs.