social risk factors that influence the spread of hiv among pregnant women in ukraine

BACKGROUND. HIV infection in Ukraine is gaining large scale, affecting various population groups including those which are not considered risk groups for HIV infection. Injection drug users (IDUs) remain the main source of HIV infection. The potential penetration of the virus into the general population is determined by the chain of transmission of HIV through unprotected sexual contacts of individuals who do not inject drugs with IDUs. The level of HIV infection among women attending prenatal clinics quite accurately reflects the level of HIV prevalence and trends of the epidemic among the general population.METHODS. The project is developed by the Ukrainian National AIDS Centre. Project timeframe is January–August 2011. Expected number of participants is 1041. Target group includes HIV-positive women who were pregnant and first registered as HIV-positive in 2009-2010 and gave birth to their babies in 2010-2011. Preliminary data analysis anticipates identification of traditional risk groups (IDUs, sexual workers’ clients, prisoners, HIV-positives) among sexual partners of women from the study group. Social, demographic, and behavioral risk factors are to be estimated among the target group, and the probable transmission routes among the study participants are to be elucidated. As the study is in progress, we report here the results of the analysis of a pilot group of 21 filled-in questionnaires.RESULTS. The majority of the study population are young women aged 15-30 with university (28.6%) or college (23.8%) education. Most of them are city-dwellers and are married. Nine in ten respondents were tested as HIV-positive during pregnancy. Two thirds of respondents indicated the heterosexual way of transmission as the most probable. Nine in ten denied having injected drugs; however, 15% of them had hepatitis C virus and hepatitis B virus antibodies.CONCLUSION. According to preliminary results, HIV-positive women are young married city-dwelling women who do not belong to HIV high-risk groups.