Mother to child to transmission ranked second in HIV spread

The Uganda Aids Commission ranks transmission of HIV from an infected mother to a child as the second most common means of transmission of the virus. Available data shows that Mother to child transmission including breastfeeding accounts for 15-25 per cent of new infections.

About 80,000 women living with HIV/Aids get pregnant annually in Uganda and 20,000 to 25,000 of these pass the virus to their babies. This process of an HIV positive woman passing the virus to her baby is what has technically been referred to as Mother to child transmission.

According to Dr Anthony Mbonye, the Assistant Commissioner for reproductive health at the ministry of health, transmission of HIV this way occurs at three different stages. “One is through the uterus when the mother is carrying the baby,” Dr Mbonye says. “The second way is when the woman is in labour. During labour the uterus compresses and in the process blood can move from the mother to the child and cause infection. The third most common way of transmission and Mother to child transmission is during breastfeeding.”

The Uganda Aids Commission ranks transmission of HIV from an infected mother to a child as the second most common means of transmission of the virus. Available data shows that Mother to child transmission including breastfeeding accounts for 15-25 per cent of new infections. As a result, there is currently an estimated 150,000 living with HIV and Aids. But can this situation be avoided or at least minimised? Dr Mbonye answers in the affirmative: “There are preventive drugs given to the mother during labour and the infant soon after delivery. This is called prophylaxis.”

Mother to child transmission is what Dr Mbonye is referring to. An effective Mother to child transmission programme however requires a threefold strategy. This entails preventing HIV infection among prospective parents. Avoiding unwanted pregnancies among HIV positive women. And the third is preventing the transmission of HIV from HIV positive mothers to their infants during pregnancy, labour, delivery and breast feeding.

It is because of the above, explains Dr Mbonye, that in Uganda, the Mother to child transmission package entails four components of HIV counselling and testing, ARV prophylaxis, infant feeding and counselling, and family planning.

Ideally all health facilities should be providing Mother to child transmission services with Health Centre II delivering HIV Counselling and Testing and Family Planning. And from Health Centre III and IV facilities through to the hospitals, all the four components of the package are meant to be offered. And if all this was happening and up take of the services were equally good, chances of women passing on the virus to their babies would be reduced to 50 to 70 per cent or even more, according to Dr Mbonye.

However, challenges to the Mother to child transmission programme abound. According to the 2007 Uganda Service Provision Survey, only 28 per cent of health facilities provide at least one of the four components of the Mother to child transmission package and 15 per cent offer all the four package components.