Over 40% of women with recent pregnancy and a third of men with recent partner pregnancy do not know the HIV infection status of their partner, research conducted in Durban, South Africa, published in BMC Public Health shows. Moreover, only 4% of women and 13% of men knew they were in a serodiscordant relationship (one partner HIV-positive, the other HIV-negative) prior to pregnancy.
“HIV prevalence for adults aged 15-49 years in KwaZulu-Natal is estimated at 28% and the prevalence of serodiscordant couples is likely to be between 20 and 30%,” note the authors. “Our data are unlikely to reflect low prevalence of serodiscordant couples, rather they indicate the low prevalence of HIV serostatus disclosure and/or knowledge of personal HIV status.”
More needs to be done to increase testing and disclosure within relationships, say the authors. Otherwise, the low level of partner HIV status revealed by the study could mean that the use of antiretroviral therapy (ART) as prevention and pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) are likely to have little impact in South Africa.
Serodiscordant couples who wish to have children are recommended to take early ART and to have timed peri-ovulatory intercourse. These substantially reduce the risk of HIV transmission during intercourse. But to benefit from these interventions, individuals need to be aware of their own HIV status and that of their partner.
Investigators wanted to know what proportion of women with recent pregnancy (within the previous twelve months) and men with recent partner pregnancy (within the previous 36 months) who were in serodiscordant relationships were aware they were in a relationship with a partner of a different HIV infection status at the time of conception.
Michael Carter
aidsmap
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