Abstract
BackgroundInfants infected during pregnancy or while breastfeeding requires early HIV diagnosis at 6 weeks after birth to identify HIV infection and timely treatment. The objective of this work was to determine the prevalence and associated risk factors of HIV among HIV exposed infants in the Tigray regional state, Northern Ethiopia.MethodsA cross-sectional study was conducted on 350 exposed infants born to HIV seropositive mothers from September 01 to December 30, 2016. Convenient consecutive sampling technique was employed to enroll HIV exposed infants from age 6 weeks to 18 months attending prevention of mother to child transmission (PMCT) clinic at Anti Retroviral Therapy (ART) site facility in Tigray, Ethiopia. Sociodemographic data and associated risk factors were collected using a structured questionnaire. Dried Blood Spot (DBS) samples were collected from each infant and transported by post to Tigray Health Research Institute to detect HIV infection using real-time Polymerase Chain Reaction (PCR). Data were entered into EPI Info version 7, exported and analyzed using Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS) version 22. p-value less than 0.05 was deemed to be statistically significant by Fisher’s exact test.ResultsThree hundred forty infants (175 males, 165 females) met the criteria for selection during the completion of the study and the overall HIV prevalence was found to be 2.1% (n = 7). The majority of infants were from urban areas (n = 246, 72.4%). 45.5% (5/11, p = 0.001) infants were without ARV prophylaxis, 60% (3/5, p = 0.001) infants born to mothers who did not take maternal PMTCT intervention, 43% (3/7, p = 0.001) infants born to mothers who were not enrolled to ART care, and 6.1% (4/66, p = 0.029) infants of unmarried mothers showed statistically significant difference.ConclusionsThe overall prevalence of HIV among exposed infants was high but lower than the Millennium Development Goal targets. In order to eliminate the mother to child HIV transmission (MTCT) ARV prophylaxis in infants must be strengthened, and enrollment of HIV positive pregnant women to PMTCT and ART care and treatment is needed.
Highlights
Infants infected during pregnancy or while breastfeeding requires early Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV) diagnosis at 6 weeks after birth to identify HIV infection and timely treatment
According to the ministry of health report, the overall estimated national HIV prevalence was 1.14%, where 769,600 people were living with HIV and about 15,700 with new HIV infections, while 35,600 acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS)-related deaths were recorded at the end of 2014
Study area and sample size determination The study was conducted in 83 public Anti Retroviral Therapy (ART) site health facilities in Tigray Regional State, Northern Ethiopia spread across 54,572.6 sq. km
Summary
Infants infected during pregnancy or while breastfeeding requires early HIV diagnosis at 6 weeks after birth to identify HIV infection and timely treatment. There were approximately 36.7 (34.0–39.8) million people living with HIV with 2.1 (1.8–2.4) million people becoming newly infected in 2015 globally Sub-Saharan Africa is the most affected region, with 25.6 (23.1–28.5) million people living with HIV in 2015 and accounts for almost 70% of the global prevalence (http:// www.unaids.org/sites/default/files/media_asset/UNAIDS_ FactSheet_en.pdf, http://www.who.int/mediacentre/factsheets/fs360/en/). The contribution of children under 15 infected by HIV was 2.6 million with 88% of the cases being reported from Sub-Saharan Africa (http://www.unaids.org/ sites/default/files/media_asset/UNAIDS_FactSheet_en.pdf, https://data.unicef.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/12/2015Children-Adolescents-and-AIDS-Statistical-Update-Executive-Summary_244.pdf ). According to the ministry of health report, the overall estimated national HIV prevalence was 1.14%, where 769,600 people were living with HIV and about 15,700 with new HIV infections, while 35,600 AIDS-related deaths were recorded at the end of 2014 (http://www.afro.who.int/countries/ethiopia). The prevalence of HIV related estimate for Tigray, Ethiopia was predicted at 1.8% for 2017 with 6055 cases in the 0–14 age group and 58,742 cases in 15 and above age group (https://www.ephi.gov.et/images/ pictures/download2009/HIV_estimation_and_projection_for_Ethiopia_2017.pdf )
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