Maternal health care wins district vote in Uganda.

When Dr Godfrey Egwau, a consultant obstetrician at Soroti Regional Referral Hospital’s maternity unit, stood for parliament in February, voters knew that if he won he would move to the capital, Kampala, about 280 km away. Women in Soroti district weighed this and overwhelmingly voted for his opponent. Egwau, who dreamed of going into politics, lost the election. Many associate Egwau with the high standard of maternal care provided here. He is proud of the district’s record, but says the good work is not his achievement alone. “When I stood for parliament in the last elections, they refused to vote for me, saying ‘this is our good doctor, he cannot go!’ It’s true, we have succeeded, but we need to move away from individualization,” Egwau said. Many women across Uganda give birth without knowing whether they are HIV positive. But pregnant women, like Connie*, who come to the Soroti hospital receive routine HIV counselling and testing. Of some 500 admissions a month, 30–40 test positive and are provided with treatment to prevent transmission of HIV from mother to child. When the 22year-old mother’s result was positive, she was given medicine to prevent her from infecting her daughter, counselling, and she was put on antiretroviral (ARV) treatment. Since February 2005, life-saving ARV medicines have been provided free to patients in Uganda who are HIV positive. Soroti district became the test ground for a pilot of the WHO programme, Making Pregnancy Safer (MPS) from 2001 to 2004, the central principle of which is to make skilled care available for every birth. Since then, the district has continued to provide this high level of maternal care. Thousands of women like Connie have benefited. Uganda is one of many countries taking the MPS approach, including Bangladesh, Bolivia, Kenya, India, Indonesia, the Lao People’s Democratic Republic, the Republic of Moldova, the Philippines, Timor-Leste, the United Republic of Tanzania and Zambia. “The success of the Making Pregnancy Safer initiative in Uganda