Efficacy of strategies to reduce perinatal HIV-1 transmission in Argentina, 1993-2000

CEBALLOS ANA; AVILA M; PANDO M; LIBERATORE D; BIGLIONE M, ; MARTÍNEZ M; COLL P; CELLADILLA; MARTÍNEZ PERALTA L

JOURNAL OF ACQUIRED IMMUNE DEFICIENCY SYNDROMES.

Wolters Kluwer

Año: 2002 vol. 31 p. 348 - 353

0894-9255

J Acquir Immune Defic Syndr. 2002 Nov 1;31(3):348-53.Efficacy of strategies to reduce mother-to-child HIV-1 transmission in Argentina,1993-2000.Ceballos A, de Los Angeles Pando M, Liberatore D, Biglione M, Cárdenas PC,Martínez M, Celadilla ML, Avila MM, Peralta LM.National Reference Center for AIDS, Department of Microbiology, University ofBuenos Aires School of Medicine, Buenos Aires, Argentina. aceballo@fmed.uba.arThis study evaluated the success of a national program for the prevention ofmother-to-child transmission (MTCT) of HIV-1 in 874 mother-infant pairs fromBuenos Aires and surroundings. This population was referred to the NationalReference Center for AIDS for diagnosis of neonatal infection during 1993-2000.The data revealed an increase in the use of antiretroviral therapy duringpregnancy from 3.2% in 1993-1994 to 73.1% in 1999-2000 and in the use of cesareandelivery (reaching 54.8% in 1999-2000). However, the proportion of HIV-infectedwomen who continued to breast-feed their children remained steady (around 12%).General improvement of the conditions for decreasing MTCT resulted in asignificant decrease in the proportion of infected infants from 37.3% before 1995to 10.7% in 1999-2000 and even 6.5% during 2001. Data on the time of diagnosisindicated that only 42.7% of the women knew about their HIV status beforepregnancy, 44.8 knew during pregnancy, and 12.3% knew after the birth of theirchild. The main risk factor for HIV infection in the mothers was heterosexualcontact (73%), and in the fathers, it was injection drug use (67%). These resultspoint out the urgent need to develop additional strategies for prevention of MTCTof HIV-1 to generalize education, counseling, and testing of young women.