KNOWLEDGE REGARDING HIV/AIDS AND MOTHER TO CHILD TRANSMISSION ISSUES AMONG WOMEN SEEKING ANTENATAL CARE IN VIMSAR, BURLA

Globally, around 34 million people are living with HIV in 2010, and 35% of the pregnant women are tested for HIV in the low and middle income countries. HIV infection in pregnancy has become a complication of pregnancy in some developing countries. This has major implications for the management of pregnancy and birth. A cross sectional study was conducted from December 2018 – February 2019 in tertiary care hospital, VIMSAR Burla . The present study was conducted to assess the knowledge about HIV/AIDS and mother to child transmission issues among women seeking antenatal care and visiting ICTC. A sample of 150 pregnant females was used to accomplish the study. A pre- tested semi-structured questionnaire was used to gather information on the study variables. The questionnaire included variables related socio-demographics e.g., age, education status, occupation, residence, awareness about HIV/AIDS. The study reflected that 83.4% of the women had heard of the term HIV/AIDS which reflects a relatively high level of awareness about the term but subsequently dropping levels of awareness about the routes of transmission, laboratory diagnosis and the availability of drugs. Only 45.3% of the respondents were aware of ICTC. 42.7% were aware about mother to child transmission of HIV and only 32% were aware of anti-retro viral therapy for newborn. Keywords: HIV, ICTC, Antenatal