RESEARCH ARTICLE Open Access HIV-free survival accordin

Full list of author information is available at the end of the articleBackground Among the few mothers that accessed prevention of mother to child transmission of HIV (PMTCT) services in Nigeria, the reports of successes in interventions had been limited to stating the MTCT rates of HIV, indicat-ing values in the range of 1.1%-11%, over 6 weeks to 18 months of age [1-5]. However, limited information exists on the longitudinal follow-up and survival of these HIV-exposed infants. In 2010, the World Health Organization (WHO) proposed HIV-free survival as the gold standard for evaluating National PMTCT programme effectiveness [6]. HIV-free survival captures information on the direct effects and the indirect effects of PMTCT programmes. The direct effects include information on HIV infection at birth and through breastfeeding and the deaths prevented [6]. The indirect survival benefits that may * Correspondence