Dramatic and sustained increase in HIV-testing rates among antenatal attendees in Eastern Uganda after a policy change from voluntary counselling and testing to routine counselling and testing for HIV: a retrospective analysis of hospital records, 2002-2009

Table 1 Selected indicators of prevention of mother-to-child HIV transmission at Mbale Regional Referral Hospital, 2002-2009

Indicator	Voluntary HIV testing period n (%)	Routine HIV testing period n (%)	P-value (two-tailed)
New ANC attendees
Booked for ANC	29834	24595	-
Counselled for HIV	18583 (62.3)	24171 (98.3)	0.042*
Tested for HIV	6570 (22.0)	21538 (87.6)	0.002*
HIV positive	566 (8.6)	1147 (5.3)	0.012*
Male Partners of the ANC attendees ^a
Counselled for HIV	80 (100)	389 (100)	0.012*
Tested for HIV	70 (87.5)	389 (100)	0.010*
HIV positive	15 (21.4)	25 (6.4)	0.112
HIV- infected pregnant women
Used ARVs for PMTCT^b	316 (55.8)	885 (77.2)	0.015*
Delivered in hospital	172 (30.4)	464 (40.5)	0.042*
Infants given ARVs for PMTCT^c	184 (32.5)	451 (39.3)	0.050

* Statistically significant p-value of the independent-samples t-test at the 0.05 level
^a All male partners who accompanied their spouses for the antenatal care visit were counselled about HIV.
^b During the VCT period the HIV- infected women and their infants received single dose Nevirapine (sdNVP), but in the RCT period the mothers received a combination regimen of Zidovudine (ZDV, AZT) and Lamivudine (3TC) from 32 weeks plus sdNVP at onset of labour. The infants received sdNVP syrup and ZDV syrup for one week. Women were started on HAART after 14 weeks gestation if they had a CD4 count of < 350 or WHO disease stage 3 or 4 clinically.
^c Some babies were brought to hospital for the ARVs within 72 hours of birth outside the hospital and some babies born in the hospital missed getting ARVs when out of stock.

ISSN: 1472-6963