South African health officials say a new program aimed at stopping mother to child transmission of HIV has prevented thousands of babies from becoming infected with the virus.

The South African Medical Research Council says data just released at the 2011 AIDS Conference in Durban show the HIV transmission rate between mother and child has dropped to 3.5 percent.

Based on the success of the program, the South African government believes the transmission of HIV from pregnant mothers to babies can be eliminated by the year 2015.

Doctors intend to repeat the evaluation program through this year and 2012 so they can better evaluate the effectiveness of the HIV prevention program over a longer period.