This came to light in a briefing of councillors by the Principal Planner in the Department of Town and Regional Planning, Bashemi Phillime, here this week. The figures were compiled between January and March this year after being collected from various health centres across the city. According to the figures, of the 434 HIV positive mothers who gave birth in the city during the period under discussion, 398 were already receiving ARV treatment. Phillime said of the 434 pregnant women who tested positive for HIV, 405 enrolled for Prevention of Mother-to-Child Transmission treatment while the rest went missing from the programme. The statistics also reveal that out of the 405 mothers delivered under the programme, 35 opted to breastfeed their children. Out of 434 children born to HIV positive mothers, 218 were tested for the virus.
Phillime told the councillors that 49.8 percent of the children born to HIV positive mothers were not tested. Of the 218 children born in the last quarter of the last financial year who were tested for the virus, only 155 have received their results. "The results for 63 children are still pending and will be released in due course," Phillime said. Of the 155 children who tested for the virus, only 3.9% were found to be positive. Phillime said that this proved that the PMTCT initiative was considerably effective.
