Considerable efforts are still needed in the public health sector, as well as in clinical, social and basic research, to improve programmes for HIV-1 MTCT (mother-to-child transmission) prevention and care. Advantage should be taken of the remarkable amount of expertise and resources that have accumulated over the past few years to accelerate the process of integration. Future initiatives should include integrating specialists and people with diverse backgrounds and targeting their scientific and programmatic ideas to address real-world problems in the area of MTCT of HIV-1.