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Prevention of Mother-to-Child
Transmission (PMTCT) 2010 Guidelines recommend that all pregnant women with CD4
counts at or below 350 cell/mm3 or World Health Organization (WHO) stage 3 or 4
HIV start antiretroviral therapy (ART) within two weeks of diagnosis.
Researchers at South Africa’s Stellenbosch University report that adoption of
the guidelines eliminated mother-to-child transmission (MTCT) at Tygerberg
Infectious Diseases Clinic for 90 babies born to HIV-infected mothers in 2010.
In contrast, the MTCT rate at
Tygerberg was 4.6 percent in 2008 and 7 percent in 2009. South Africa has the
highest prevalence of HIV in the world; approximately 20 percent of women
delivering at Tygerberg have the virus.
The researchers also found that the
higher the CD4 count at the time of delivery, the lower the risk of HIV
transmission. Study authors urged women to visit a maternity clinic as soon as
they know they are pregnant so they can have HIV testing and link to care as
soon as possible. Study results indicate that the risk of transmitting HIV was
10 times higher for women who had been on ART for less than eight weeks. The
number of Tygerberg Clinic patients on ART for more than eight weeks increased
from 47.8 percent in 2009 to 73.7 percent in 2010. Identifying bottlenecks in
the referral process could speed up linkage to care.
Study authors also noted that the
longer expectant mothers were on ART, the less likely they were to be lost to
follow-up. They recommended increasing awareness of the benefits of visiting
maternity clinics early to fast-track ART therapy.
The full report, “The Impact of
Revised PMTCT Guidelines: A View from a Public Sector ARV Clinic in Cape Town,
South Africa,” was published online in the Journal of Acquired Immune
Deficiency Syndromes (2013; doi 10.109y/QAI.0b013e31828bb721).
The Friends of AIDS Foundation is
dedicated to enhancing the quality of life for HIV positive individuals and
empowering people to make healthy choices to prevent the spread of the HIV
virus. To learn more about The Friends of AIDS Foundation, please visit: http://www.friendsofaids.org.
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