Category: Chez Rosalie Update - Mother to Child HIV Transmission
Chez Rosalie Update
During my visit to Mali two weeks ago, I was presented with a summary of the first year of intervention by Dr. Malick Kone, and Dr. Adama Daou. Here is a brief synopsis of their results – 1440 pregnant women were evaluated for HIV infection at Chez Rosalie in the last year. 99% accepted the test so – - more than 1425 women were tested. 53 of these women were found to be HIV seropositive (3,7%). Of these 53, 19 women had delivered by the end of the 12 months – and 18 accepted Nevirapine (Triple therapy was not given at this time).This is amazing work and we celebrated it at the clinic – with the nurse midwives and the matrons who did most of the heavy lifting. We are amazed that the level of acceptance was so high – but there is one problem that we discovered – none of the mothers were yet on treatment – and none had had their CD4 T cell counts done to determine if they needed treatment. That is what we are trying to rectify with the Hope Center clinical project.
Meanwhile Victoria Albina is working on translating Dr. Adama Daou’s “Memoire” about the year of work into English for publication, and she’ll be adding her own insights about what it’s like to implement Mother to Child Transmission prevention on the Front Lines as she is actively catching babies this summer at Chez Rosalie. Look for more information on MTCP and Chez Rosalie from Victoria next week.