Prevalence Of HIV Infection Among Antenatal Attendees At Uyo Teaching Hospital, Akwa Ibom State, South-South Nigeria

This retrospective study was conducted at the maternity unit of the University of Uyo Teaching Hospital Uyo. The aim was to determine the prevalence of HIV infection among pregnant women receiving antenatal care in the center. The voluntary counselling and testing register, the partner notification and antenatal clinic registers of all patients that booked for antenatal care between 1st July 2005 and 31st December 2007 were reviewed. There were 5,635 new antenatal clients during the study period out of which 464 were confirmed HIV positive resulting in a prevalence of 8.2%. Most of the patients were between 21-30 years (70.0%). About 59.4% of the patients were multiparous while 49.4% booked for antenatal care in the third trimester of pregnancy. HIV was diagnosed in the antenatal clinic in 408 (87.9%) of the patients and 182 (39.2%) received antiretroviral drugs during pregnancy. Only 38.8% of the patients accepted to notify their partners. One hundred and eighty eight patients delivered in the hospital. One hundred and twenty (63.8%) had spontaneous vaginal delivery, 63 (33.5%) were delivered by caesarean section, 3 (1.7%) had assisted vaginal breech delivery and 2 (1.1%) had ventouse delivery. The high prevalence of HIV infection among women pregnant women who have antenatal care in our hospital is highlighted. The intensification of strategies aimed at primary prevention of HIV infection in the community, encouraging all pregnant women to avail themselves of orthodox antenatal care, and the need to emphasize the advantages of self disclosure of serostatus to partners during counselling sessions in the antenatal clinic are advocated. KEY WORDS: HIV Positive women, antenatal attendees, Uy