Letter to editor Prevalence of HIV in pregnant women in a rural area of Maharashtra, India

The PPTCT program aims to prevent peri-natal transmission of HIV from an HIV infected pregnant mother to her newborn baby. The program entails counseling and testing of pregnant women in the ICTCs. Pregnant women found to be HIV- positive are given a single dose of Nevirapine tablet at the time of labor; their newborn babies also get a single dose of Nevirapine syrup within 72 hours after births to prevent transmission of HIV from mother to child1. According to National AIDS Control Organization (NACO), it is estimated that about 30,000 infants acquire HIV infection every year2. National AIDS Control Organization of India initiated phase 1 feasibility study on the prevention of mother to child transmission using the short course regimen of Azidothymidine (AZT) and phase 2 of this project using Nevirapine (NVP) had been initiated in th