Babies to be tested for HIV upon birth - official

Babies born to HIV positive mothers will be tested at birth and immediately initiated on anti-retroviral drugs should they test positive, a senior official in the Ministry of Health and Child Care has said. Previously, exposed babies were tested after six weeks of birth.

The new arrangement follows the release of new treatment and management of HIV guidelines by the World Health Organisation (WHO) at the just-ended International Aids Conference that took place in Amsterdam, Netherlands.

In an interview with The Herald yesterday, national prevention of mother-to-child transmission and paediatric care and treatment coordinator in the Ministry of Health and Child Care Dr Angela Mushavi said the country would initiate a pilot project on the feasibility of these guidelines next month. She said following installation of the 100 Samba 11 point of care machines at various district hospitals across the country, HIV testing of babies as soon as they are born must not be a challenge.

"The emphasis now from the new guidelines is on early infant diagnosis and treatment," said Dr Mushavi.

"We are currently waiting for approvals to enable us to start testing the babies as soon as they are born. We hope to get these before the end of September.

"We already have point-of-care machines at some selected district hospitals, hence testing the babies as soon as they are born should not give us a problem. Those that are tested positive would then be commenced on treatment immediately."

Dr Mushavi said testing babies after six weeks was problematic in that some mothers were lost on follow up, hence increasing the risk of them transmission the virus to their babies during breastfeeding. Meanwhile, the laboratory department in the Ministry of Health and Child Care said they were also looking forward to fully utilise the Samba 11 point-of-care machines to carry out all the tests it can perform.

At the moment the machines are mainly used for viral load monitoring in HIV positive adults yet they can also be used for testing HIV in babies. They can also be used to test sexually transmitted diseases, Human Papilloma Virus- the virus that causes cervical cancer and hepatitis.

"We are now looking at multi-plexing, where the same machine can be used to conduct a number of tests," said deputy director for laboratory services Mr Raiva Simbi.

Previously, all these tests were run at central laboratories either at district or provincial hospitals, a process that worsened the condition of patients as they wait for results. Zimbabwe has been leading Africa in scaled up use of this technology, but other countries such as Cameroon, Uganda, Malawi, Central African Republic (CAR) and Kenya have since followed suit.

Laboratory expert with Doctors-Without-Boarders Dr Monique Gueguen whose organisation has been using Samba II point of care technology of late in CAR, Malawi and Uganda said the technology was ideal for rapid treatment of patients in resource poor countries such as those in Southern Africa.