Declining Hiv Seroprevalence Among Pregnant Women in South Odisha, India: A Six and Half Year Tertiary Care Hospital Based Study

Abstract

Background: Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome (AIDS) caused by Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV) has emerged as the greatest threat to human existence. Estimating the rate and trends of HIV seroprevalence among pregnant women provides essential information for an effective implementation of Prevention of Parent to Child Transmission of HIV (PPTCT) programme and for monitoring its spread within different parts of the country. Objective: As few studies are available from India on HIV prevalence among the antenatal population, a study at a tertiary care hospital in southern Odisha was carried out to know the current trends of seroprevalence in this group. Methods: Blood samples were collected from pregnant women attending antenatal clinic and Integrated Counselling and Testing Centre II (ICTC II) after pre test counselling and informed consent from November 2005 to April 2012. The samples were tested for HIV antibodies as per WHO and NACO guidelines. Result: Among 18,905 pregnant women counseled, 15,853 (83.85%) were accepted for HIV testing. From the total 15,853 tested in six and half years, 0.66% women were found to be HIV seropositive. The mean age of HIV positive women was 24.31 years (SD ± 3.9 yrs). The HIV seroprevalence rates showed a declining trend from 1.53% in 2006 to 0.34% in 2012. Among seropositive women majority (43.8%) were in the age group of 25-29 years. Conclusion: Declining seroprevalence rate indicate prevention campaigns are working, condom usage and preventive sexual behavior has increased.

Trend of HIV seroprevalence among antenatal women at tertiary care hospital in North India, eleven years retrospective study

“…8 In comparison to other studies of Uttar Pradesh; higher seroprevalence of 0.4% were observed by Mehrotra et 16,20,22 In study done by Gupta et al in AIIMS Delhi, India, prevalence was found to be 0.88%. 21 Studies from south India by Giri 7,15,17,22,27,30 Analyzing the reason for this difference between our results and NACO data, could be different surveillance system. Present study is hospital based survey for past 11 years while NACO uses sentinel surveillance system and being a tertiary centre, most of seropositive HIV women are referred from several centers, so higher number of seropositive antenatal women are attended in our hospital.…”

“…16 According to present study majority of the women were multigravida and studied up to primary or secondary in contrast to study done by Dash et al and Patil et al where most of the women were primigravida and was either illiterate or studied up to primarylevel. 15,17 In this study, multigravida were found to be more infected as they were more exposed to infection. Whereas Perry et al state that there is no significant difference between seropositive and seronegative women regarding socioeconomic status, residence and religion.…”

“…7,[12][13][14][15] This emphasizes that by good HIV counselling acceptance rate can increase up to 100% as occurs in last 3 years of present study.…”

“…Present observation is consistent with study done by Dash et al where HIV infection was highest in the age group of 25-29 years (43.8%), followed by 20-24 years (33.34%). 15 But in studies done by Ukey et al, Malik et al, Gupta et al and Garg et al; HIV infection was highest in age group <24 years. [19][20][21][22] It may be because of the fact that 20 to 30 years is the most sexually active age group.…”

“…15 Similarly in study done by Mehrotra et al, majority of seropositive women were Hindu (75%), belongs to rural area (66.5%) and had low socioeconomic status (66.5%). 16 According to present study majority of the women were multigravida and studied up to primary or secondary in contrast to study done by Dash et al and Patil et al where most of the women were primigravida and was either illiterate or studied up to primarylevel.…”