Integrating prevention of mother-to-child HIV transmission into antenatal care: learning from the experiences of women in South Africa

• Published in: AIDS care Vol. 16; no. 1; pp. 37 - 46
• Main Authors: Etiebet, M.-a., Fransman, D., Forsyth, B., Coetzee, N., Hussey, G.
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Abingdon healthsciences 01.01.2004; Taylor & Francis; Taylor & Francis Ltd
• Subjects: Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome; Adult; AIDS; AIDS/HIV; Antenatal care; Anti-HIV Agents - therapeutic use; Attitude to Health; Babies; Biological and medical sciences; Breast Feeding; Cross-Sectional Studies; Domestic violence; Female; Health care; Health Care Services; HIV; HIV Infections - prevention & control; HIV Infections - transmission; Human immunodeficiency virus; Humans; Infectious Disease Transmission, Vertical - prevention & control; Medical sciences; Mothers; Postnatal Care - methods; Pregnancy; Pregnancy Complications, Infectious - prevention & control; Prenatal Care - methods; Prevention; Prevention and actions; Public health. Hygiene; Public health. Hygiene-occupational medicine; Reproductive health; South Africa; Specific populations (family, woman, child, elderly...); Tests; Transmission; Truth Disclosure; Urban Population; Women; Women's Health Services - organization & administration; Womens Health Care; Zidovudine - therapeutic use; South Africa; Africa; Human; Immunopathology; Sanitary program; Attitude; AIDS; Immune deficiency; Infection; Prenatal; Prevention; Viral disease; Female; Vertical transmission; Public health
• DOI: 10.1080/09540120310001633958
• ISSN: 0954-0121

In 1999, for the first time in South Africa, a Mother-to-Child HIV Transmission (MTCT) prevention programme was implemented at the routine primary care level and not as part of a research protocol. A total of 264 women attending prenatal care in these clinics were interviewed in Xhosa using a standardized questionnaire. All had been offered HIV testing, and 95% had accepted. Women who had not been tested were four times more likely to believe that in the community families reject HIV-positive women (p<0.005). Of women who tested, 19% were HIV positive and 83% had told their partner that they had taken the test. HIV-positive women who had not disclosed testing to their partners were three times more likely to believe that, in the community, partners are violent towards HIV-positive women (p<0.005); 86% stated that they would have taken AZT if found to be HIV positive. Only 11% considered that the use of formula feeding indicated that a woman was HIV positive. In conclusion, routine prenatal HIV testing and interventions to reduce perinatal HIV transmission are acceptable to the majority of women in a South African urban township, despite an awareness of discrimination in the community towards HIV-positive women.