Statistical Modeling and Analysis of Mother-To-Child Transmission of HIV: A Case Study in Referral Hospital and Health Center of Hawassa Town, South Nation Nationality People, Ethiopia

Abstract

Mother-to-Child Transmission of HIV (MTCT) is the major source of HIV infection among children under the age of 15 years. Within the prevention programs, package of services including HIV counseling and testing, provision of prophylactic antiretroviral (ARV) drugs for mothers and babies, safe delivery practices and infant feeding counseling is being given. This study is thus to model mother-to-child transmission of HIV and survival of HIV infected babies. The data were obtained from Health Centre and Referral Hospital at Hawassa town recorded from year 1999-2001. Bayesian logistic regression, Kaplan Meier method & Cox proportional hazards model are applied. The results of the analysis showed that among the 200 children who HIV positive 16% died were. Another finding is that about 97.3% of the total pregnant women were married and 41.3% of them were illiterate. Among 802 mothers, 97 or 12.1% are HIV positive. From the 97 HIV positive pregnant women, a majority (92.8%) had good knowledge about HIV transmission and AIDS disease. However 94.9% of them had very low knowledge about the prophylaxis treatment and ART medication. The variables age, marital status and occupation are the main significant factors that may expose the mothers to HIV infection. Pregnant women who were married and in elementary occupation were more likely to be infected than those who were unmarried and in higher occupation. Moreover, analysis of the children data showed that variables low weight, low CD4 count of children and interaction of both with age decrease the hazard of time to death by 15%, 2% and 0% respectively. Conclusion considering the prevailing high level of HIV infection rate among MTCT clients, re-organization of the PMTCT services especially raising the level of awareness of MTCT/PMTCT among pregnant women is important to prevent the babies from HIV infection.