%0 Journal Article
%T Sero-Epidemiology of hiv infection among abandoned babies in port Harcourt, Nigeria
%A Akani C
%A Erhabor O
%J Annals of African Medicine
%D 2006
%I 
%X Background : HIV infection is endemic in Nigeria and is an important cause of infant mortality and morbidity. This study was undertaken to determine the sero-epidemiology of HIV among abandoned babies in Port Harcourt, Nigeria. Methods : One hundred and forty (n = 140) consecutively recruited abandoned babies mean age 11.5 ¡À 24.1 weeks made up to 79 males and 61 females, referred to the HIV screening unit from motherless babies home in Port Harcourt for pre-adoption HIV screening within a five years period (1999¨C 2003) were screened for HIV using the WHO approved immunocomb HIV I& II kits (Organics, Israel)¨C an enzyme linked immunosorbent assay for the quantitative and differential diagnosis of HIV in serum or plasma. Initially reactive samples were continued using Genscreen HIV 1& 2 (p24) antigen test (Bro Rad, France). Results :HIV was detected in 19(13.6%) of babies tested. Sero-prevalence was highest in babies 9¨C 16 weeks (25.0%). Males accounted for the highest infection burden (57.9%) compared to (42.1%) for females. Data indicated that the prevalence of HIV declined from 12.5% in 1999 to 8.3% in 2000 and increased subsequently to 20% in 2001 but declined steadily to 16.1% in 2002 and 14.3% in 2003. HIV-1 accounted for the predominant viral subtype among babies sero-positive for HIV (89.5%). Chi square analysis indicates that symptom at abandonment was an independent risk factor for HIV infection among abandoned babies (¦Ö2 = 40.97; p = 0.0001). Conclusions : This study demonstrates a high prevalence of HIV among abandoned babies in Port Harcourt. This calls for an urgent need for government, non governmental organization and faith-based organization to critically examine the issue of child abandonment and HIV infection by initiating care and support programme aimed at providing knowledge and information which emphasizes a combination of behavioural and social changes and providing a youth-friendly health services to control the HIV scourge.
%K Sero-epidemiology
%K HIV
%K abandoned babies
%K Port Harcourt
%U http://www.annalsafrmed.org/article.asp?issn=1596-3519;year=2006;volume=5;issue=1;spage=6;epage=9;aulast=Akani