1. Staying, leaving and returning: Trends of prevention of mother-to-child transmission retention among newly diagnosed HIV-positive pregnant and postpartum women
- Author
-
Susanna A Abraham and Sheila E Clow
- Subjects
medicine.medical_specialty ,Human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) ,HIV Infections ,Dermatology ,Newly diagnosed ,medicine.disease_cause ,law.invention ,law ,Pregnancy ,medicine ,Humans ,Pharmacology (medical) ,Pregnancy Complications, Infectious ,Retrospective Studies ,business.industry ,Postpartum Period ,Public Health, Environmental and Occupational Health ,Infant, Newborn ,Prevention of mother to child transmission ,Infant ,Infectious Disease Transmission, Vertical ,Infectious Diseases ,Transmission (mechanics) ,Family medicine ,Female ,business - Abstract
Uptake of services and retention throughout the Prevention of Mother-to-Child Transmission continuum are necessary to achieve the goal of reducing Mother-to-Child Transmission of Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV). Adopting a retrospective cohort design, we tracked the uptake of services in a district hospital in Ghana from antenatal booking through to six weeks postnatal when early infant diagnosis was conducted. Of the 1252 pregnant women booked antenatally, 94.1% ( n = 1178) received pre-test counselling, 96.3% (1134) opted for HIV testing and 3.8% ( n = 43) women tested positive for HIV throughout the continuum. The retention rate at six weeks postpartum was 67.4%. Missed opportunities occurred throughout the programme and the highest disengagement, 58.9% (23/39) occurred antenatally. Instances of re-engagement were also recorded. Establishing measures to promote retention throughout the programme is critical to ensuring HIV-infected mothers maintain their health and their exposed newborns are HIV-free. This phase of the study provided a comprehensive view of retention in the absence of any baseline.
- Published
- 2021