Publication:

To study the prevalence of HIV infection amongst antenatal women in a tertiary care hospital in Gujarat, India

Background India has an estimated 2.1 million persons living with HIV in 2011. The prevalence of HIV among adult population has consistently declined over the last one decade from 0.4% in 2000 to 0.27% in 2011.HIV transmission from infected mother to baby is known to occur. The effective use of Antiretroviral drugs is known to reduce the risk significantly.

Methods This is a retrospective data analysis to know the prevalence of HIV infection among antenatal women attending a tertiary care hospital. All antenatal females are offered pretest counseling, sample collected and tested as per NACO guidelines by Rapid test and ELISA. Results of the test are disclosed after posttest counseling and kept confidential.

Results The seroprevalence over five years in the present study ranges from 0.466% to 0.278%. Women in the age group 21-25 years shows high prevalence due to peak sexual activity in this age group. 56.66% Husbands of these females are reactive which shows the major source of infection.

Conclusions The present study stresses the need to target the population mainly between 21-30 years in various Government programmes, thereby to reduce the transmission from parent to child.