Utilization of therapeutic intervention to prevent mother to child transmission of HIV in a teaching hospital in Kolkata, India

AIM: To assess the uptake of an HIV screening program and therapeutic intervention to minimize the risk of mother to child transmission. METHODS: This was a cross-sectional observational study with retrospective data obtained from patient medical records. Pregnant women presenting to a tertiary care center in Kolkata India from 1 January 2004 - 31 December 2007 underwent HIV serology by rapid test after receiving group counseling. Care was administered using a standard national protocol by a multi-disciplinary team of health-care personnel. Main outcome measures were: acceptance of pretest counseling and HIV testing by pregnant women attending antenatal clinic services post-test counseling rate coverage rate of nevirapine to mother-child pairs and averted HIV infection in children. RESULTS: Of the 52 127 new antenatal booking visits 49 580 (95.11%) women attended pretest counseling and 47 506 (91.13%) women accepted HIV testing. Eighty-six women were found to be seropositive. The seroprevalence rate of HIV infection was 0.17%. Thirty-seven mothers (88%) and all newborn infants (100%) had received nevirapine prophylaxis. Overall nevirapine coverage rate was 48%. Twenty-four of the mother-infant pairs that we assessed had infants who were aged over 18 months by June 2008. Eleven (45.83%) of these women turned up with their babies for a blood test at 18 months. Three (27.27%) babies tested reactive. CONCLUSION: As uptake of testing is high and detection of HIV-infected women in pregnancy remains very low a radical rethinking of policies on therapeutic intervention and their implementation now needs to be undertaken.