HIV tests at ANC

HIV Screening for Every Mother using blood from a finger prick in resource poor settings- See http://cid.oxfordjournals.org/content/50/Supplement_3/S77.full for more on use of these easy finger prick HIV screening tests in other countries.
Whole Blood Finger Prick HIV Screening Tests are being kept in Vaccine ILR-s in some blocks
Health workers have been instructed to take these tests in Vaccine Carriers on Immunization Day and do the tests on pregnant women. Opt-out verbal consent system is being followed.

This will identify mothers for screening at PPTCT centres/ ICTC

Institutional deliveries are on the rise. The same pregnant mothers are rarely weighed at sub centres. Their BP is often missed and fundal height is also missed. Pregnancy test and Hemoglobin test are done by ASHA workers usually. Some of the waste from testing is disposed of outside the centres. VDRL testing is unheard of at the level of State General Hospital and Blood Group or Rhesus testing has never been done. There are frequent shortages of Hepatitis B vaccine. There is a doubt about the quality of maternal mortality data.


So malnutrition, miscarriages, anemia, malpresentation, eclampsia and rhesus incompatibility might be missed.

Our slogan- HIV screening for every mother!