MALAWI: Government proposes mandatory HIV test for pregnant women

The move is aimed at reducing mother-to-child transmission of HIV, but opponents of the proposed bill argue it would violate women's rights.

Malawi's current policy is to routinely test the approximately 500,000 pregnant women who attend antenatal clinics annually, unless they specifically ask not to be. However, according to Dr Mary Shawa, principal secretary for nutrition and HIV/AIDS, by October 2007 only about 162,000 pregnant mothers had been tested for HIV; 13 percent of them were positive.

Without intervention, the risk of an HIV-positive pregnant woman passing on the virus to her baby is between 30 percent and 35 percent, according to health specialists. Miriam Chipimo, reproductive health and HIV/AIDS manager for UNICEF Malawi, told IRIN/PlusNews that only slightly more than half of the 19,120 pregnant women who tested positive for HIV in Malawi in 2006 received preventative treatment.

Malawi recently switched from a single dose nevirapine regimen to the more effective and WHO-recommended triple combination of antiretroviral therapy drugs to prevent mother-to-child HIV transmission, however Chipimo noted that only 28 percent of the 544 clinics that provide maternal services in Malawi were offering PMTCT (prevention of mother-to-child) services by September this year. The government hopes to roll out the programme to all clinics by the end of 2008.

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