More tests needed to detect HIV in pregnancy

Providing more routine Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV) testing to childbearing women will significantly contribute to protecting children against progressive failure of the immune system in the future, doctors say.

Yudianto Budi Saroyo, SpOG, an obstetrics and gynecologist from Cipto Mangunkusumo General Hospital (RSCM), said HIV testing of pregnant women should be a routine part of prenatal care, being the most effective way to prevent transmission risks of the virus during childbirth.

“HIV testing on pregnant women will not only protect their health but their children’s,” Yudianto told The Jakarta Post at a recent two-day symposium on allergy and clinical immunology disease held by the Jakarta Allergy and Clinical Immunology Network (JACIN).

However, HIV testing on pregnant women is still not common in Indonesia due to low awareness on the importance of early detection.

“By receiving HIV screening, they are afraid people will see them as unrespectable women, whereas in many cases, pregnant women who are HIV positive come from community groups that are at extremely low risk of contracting HIV. Most are housewives,” said Yudianto.

According to the latest data, about 25 percent of around 5,300 HIV positive people who seek medical treatment at RSCM are women, and about 82 percent of those women are ordinary housewives.

“It shows that most women living with HIV in Indonesia are infected by their husbands who contract the virus either from risky sexual behavior or drug injection,” said Yudianto.

July Kumalawati, a clinical pathology expert from the University of Indonesia’s School of Medicine, said few Indonesians knew HIV positive was actually not uncommon anymore since it could be controlled as other diseases.“With proper treatment at the earliest stage, HIV positive people can lead a normal life,” July told the Post.

She said pregnant HIV positive women could give birth naturally at hospitals and even at community health centers if they met certain criteria, such as if infected cells in their body were under 1,000 copies per micro liters of blood and they had consumed anti retroviral (ARV) pills for more than six months.

It is common knowledge that HIV positive women who give birth naturally are at a higher risk of infecting their children than those giving birth through Caesarean section.

The World Health Organization requires health workers to offer HIV testing for every pregnant woman as part of global efforts to reduce HIV/AIDS cases as mandated in the UN’s 2015 Millennium Development Goals (MDGs).

The latest Health Ministry data shows that HIV/AIDS prevalence in Indonesia is about 0.2 percent, meaning Indonesia has reached the goal of less than 0.5 percent by 2015 to meet the MDGs. (The Jakarta Post)