Incident of Mother to Child HIV Transmission (MTCT) in Regional Health 10 of Thailand (2016- 2019) Post Certification of MTCT Elimination

Abstract

Thailand is ongoing to prevent mother-to-child HIV transmission (MTCT) with effective interventions during the periods of pregnancy, labour and newborn antiretroviral regimens administered. In 2016, Thailand could reduce MTCT to 1.9% and received validation from WHO for having eliminated MTCT of HIV and syphilis. The objective of this study was to investigate the situation and surveillance of MTCT rate in Regional Health 10. Of these 1,109 newborn blood samples were collected from hospital in Regional Health 10 during 2016 - 2019 and tested with HIV DNA PCR assay. The annual numbers of newborn blood samples were 279, 240, 282 and 308 cases that show the positive results of HIV 0%, 0.42%, 0% and 3.9%, respectively. In 2019, it was found that newborn 12 cases had positive results including 2 samples from child migrants, 4 samples from private hospital without record of antiretroviral treatment (ART), 6 samples from community hospital. All samples were high risk group. This study might be beneficial to health personnel for monitoring and surveillance to maintain MTCT elimination in Thailand.