FMoH, EHNRI release Antenatal Care HIV Surveillance Report

The Federal Ministry of Health (FMoH) in collaboration with Ethiopian Health and Nutrition Research Institute (EHNRI) has released a report of the 2007 Round Antenatal Care Sentinel HIV Surveillance of the country.

According to the report preparation team, the results of the report, which depends on the Antenatal Care-based HIV Sentinel Surveillance data from 1989 to 2005, refers to the HIV Prevalence level of ANC clients specific to regions and don not apply to the general population of the country.

The report indicated that, in this Sentinel Surveillance round, from 66 rural and 39 urban sites, 37, 050 specimens were tested for HIV and all positive, indeterminate, and 10 percent of the negative samples were retested at the National Laboratory of EHNRI for quality control.

“One quarter of the rural sites showed significant declines in HIV prevalence, while very few rural sites showed significant increase. Addis Ababa, which had many years’ trend data, indicated a clear decline over the recent years from 21.2 percent in 2005 to 6.2 in 2007” the report indicated.

It is indicated in the report that, the findings may have resulted from multiple factors including an improved ANC-based sentinel surveillance system with increased rural representation where prevalence is lower; the impact of mortality on HIV infected individuals; and HIV/AIDS control and mitigation efforts including those that lead to behavior change.

It is known that FMoH has delegated EHNRI to coordinate and implement the HIV and related surveillance and survey activities to produce reliable and timely national documents that would help for policy making, planning and Monitoring and Evaluation activities in the HIV programs.