Authors’ reply to Shaffer and colleagues

We appreciate the response from colleagues at the World Health Organization (WHO) to our article on the complexities around attaining the targeted case rate in high HIV prevalence settings to validate the elimination of mother-to-child HIV transmission (EMTCT) programme.12 Our short analysis article focused specifically on vertical transmission of HIV, so we did not reference the syphilis related information in the 2014 and 2017 WHO documents.34 Our article had two main aims: to show readers of The BMJ that true elimination of vertical HIV transmission is complex and challenging and to supplement current discourse on the ongoing …