Awareness of antenatal care clients on mother-to-child transmission (MTCT) of HIV infection and its prevention in Arba Minch

Abstract

This study was done on pregnant mothers attending the antenatal care in Arba Minch Hospital and Arba Minch Health Centre from June 15-Aug 30, 2003. Four hundred and eighty four mothers were interviewed at the antenatal clinics. The majority of the mothers (97%) were married. The risk of transmission of HIV, perinatally and through breastfeeding is well known to most mothers. However, the use of ARV prophylaxis was not known to 386(80%) of the mothers. During interview 444(92.3%) of the mothers did not know their HIV serostatus and, 360(74.4%) of all the mothers interviewed volunteered for HIV test. The results of this study indicate the need to integrate voluntary counselling and testing (VCT) in antenatal programmes and the need of educating mothers on the role of ARV prophylaxis in PMTCT.