Hyderabad: Cases of HIV+ wives and HIV-ve husbands rising

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Cases of HIV+ wives rising

Tuesday February 27 2007 09:57 IST

HYDERABAD: Cases of pregnant women testing HIV positive and their

husbands testing negative have been observed in a government hospital

in the city. Generally, it's found that in 98 per cent of the cases

where pregnant women tested HIV+, their husbands too tested positive.

However, the statistics at the Government Maternity Hospital,

Nayapul, reveal a change in the trend since mid-2006.

In the city, the highest number of deliveries take place in this

hospital. In 2006, 18,500 deliveries were reported here. However, it

has been noticed that in about 30 per cent of the HIV+ cases, the

husbands have tested negative.

Most of these pregnant women are newly married and are very young.

They belong to middle and lower middle class families. Many of them

are housewives.

The hospital is conducting counselling sessions for such couples.

Steps to prevent the infection from spreading to the child in the

mother's womb are also being taken.

However, in cases where only husbands tested positive, tests were

being conducted on pregnant women once in three months as sometimes

the infection could be observed after six months.

Speaking to this website's newspaper, hospital superintendent Dr D

Pratibha said each day about 120 pregnant women were tested for HIV

infection in the hospital. About two per cent of them tested

positive. Among them, husbands tested negative in 30 per cent of the

cases.

About one per cent of HIV infection cases among women could be

attributed to blood transfusion. The remaining, mostly, could be due

to sexual behaviour, she said. It was also difficult to say whether

these women had infection prior to marriage.

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