The World Health Organization (WHO) has certified Barbados, a small island country in the Caribbean, for eliminating mother-to-child transmission of HIV as a public health problem.
That means HIV passing from a mother living with the virus to her baby during pregnancy, at birth or through breastfeeding.
WHO announced it on 30 October 2026 through the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO), its regional office covering North, Central and South America and the Caribbean.
The record behind the certificate runs three years.
According to the announcement from PAHO and WHO, no new HIV infections from mother to child were reported among babies born on the island from 2022 to 2024.
Certification is WHO's formal confirmation that a country has met its targets, and in this case an independent assessment came first.
PAHO noted that without appropriate interventions, a baby can pick up the virus from the mother. Mother-to-child transmission is also called vertical transmission.
The assessment measured how many pregnant women the health system reached, and the answer was almost all of them.
Across the same three years, PAHO and WHO reported that 98% of pregnant women attended antenatal care (the clinic visits during pregnancy) and 98% were tested for HIV.
Among pregnant women living with HIV, 98% received antiretroviral treatment, the HIV medicines.
Put simply, for every 100 pregnant women, 98 received antenatal care and 98 were tested.
Among every 100 pregnant women living with HIV, 98 received HIV medicine.
In a separate account published in October 2026, PAHO recorded 6,352 live births in Barbados between 2022 and 2024, meaning babies born alive, and stated that no babies were born with HIV in that period.
UNAIDS, the United Nations programme on HIV and AIDS, stated in its 30 October 2026 statement that PAHO and WHO teams visited the island in 2025.
They checked how services for pregnant and breastfeeding women worked, from testing and laboratories to maternal and child clinics, vaccination and disease monitoring.
The word can mislead. HIV is still present in Barbados, and PAHO stated that certification does not mean otherwise.
When WHO certified Cuba, the Caribbean island country that in 2015 became the first in the world to be certified for HIV and syphilis, it explained that treatment to prevent transmission is not 100% effective.
Elimination therefore means bringing transmission down to a level that is no longer a public health problem.
WHO sets the bar in three parts.
First, no more than 50 infected babies for every 100,000 born, which is about one in 2,000, held for at least a year. \
Second, among babies born to mothers living with HIV, fewer than 2 in every 100 may catch it if they are not breastfed, and fewer than 5 in every 100 if they are.
Third, at least 95 of every 100 pregnant women must be reached by antenatal care and testing, and at least 95 of every 100 living with HIV must receive treatment, held for two years.
For the 6,352 births Barbados recorded from 2022 to 2024, the first limit works out to roughly three infected babies.
Barbados reported none.
WHO has also said the certification records that a country met the targets at a particular point in time.
Barbados provides health care through public clinics and hospitals, and PAHO reported that about 93% of the island's births take place at the Queen Elizabeth Hospital, its public hospital.
HIV testing and treatment are free for every pregnant woman, whatever her nationality, and babies exposed to HIV get early testing and follow-up care.
Testing is voluntary and confidential.
The WHO assessment found no evidence that women living with HIV were coerced, meaning pressured or forced, in their reproductive health care, according to PAHO.
In PAHO's 30 October 2026 announcement, WHO Director-General Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, the agency's head, said Barbados showed what universal health coverage looks like in practice.
That is health care open to everyone, in this case with free services for every pregnant woman and care that respects her rights and privacy.
Robert Benes, regional director for Latin America and the Caribbean at UNICEF, the United Nations children's agency, said in the same announcement that a diagnosis of HIV during pregnancy "no longer has to mean transmission to a child."
Barbados's Minister of Health and Wellness, Lisa Cummins, was quoted there saying the result lets mothers receive treatment during pregnancy and lets children live their full lives.
UNAIDS recorded that Barbados was among the countries in the Americas that promised in 2010, under a PAHO plan, to eliminate mother-to-child transmission of HIV and syphilis, another infection that can pass from mother to baby.
The certificate that came sixteen years later covers HIV.
PAHO listed four other places in the Caribbean that were certified before Barbados: the Bahamas and Turks and Caicos, both island territories, in 2026, and Jamaica and Saint Vincent and the Grenadines in 2024.
Brazil, the largest country in South America, was certified in 2025. UNAIDS counted 15 of the 23 countries and territories worldwide certified for ending mother-to-child HIV transmission as being in Latin America and the Caribbean, the region covering Central and South America, Mexico and the Caribbean islands, with 8 in other regions.
That is about 65% of all certifications.
Luisa Cabal, UNAIDS Regional Director for Latin America and the Caribbean, said in the same statement that the Caribbean's maternal health programmes "offer valuable lessons."
PAHO listed what Barbados needs to keep its status: continued investment, updated guidelines, stronger health information systems, more HIV and syphilis testing, and better follow-up for women and children.
UNAIDS urged the government to also act against stigma and discrimination, keep medicines and diagnostic tests reliably available, and support community-led groups that keep women and families connected to care.
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