Angela Onwuzoo Now, pregnant women living with the Human Immunodeficiency Virus who are on Antiretroviral Therapy and have a low or undetectable viral load can have a vaginal delivery, says the National Agency for the Control of AIDS. In as much as HIV can pass to the infant during birth, NACA said the risk of transmission is low in women with virally suppressed loads. Ilori, New NACA DG The agency noted that the advances in HIV treatment have greatly lowered the chances that a birthing parent would pass HIV on to their baby (also known as perinatal HIV transmission, vertical transmission, and sometimes called ‘mother-to-child’ transmission).
According to NACA, Nigeria has the highest burden of children born with HIV in the world. It, however, warned that HIV can be transmitted from an infected mother to her child during pregnancy, childbirth, and breastfeeding if she is not on treatment. Speaking in an exclusive interview with PUNCH Healthwise, a Deputy Director, Community Prevention and Care Department, NACA, Dr Yewande Olaifa, said for many years now, pregnant women living with HIV have been giving birth vaginally and not only through caesarean sections.
Olaifa said, “Yes, for over a decade now, vaginally, women can deliver unless it is contraindicated because of obstetrics matters. Childbirth “But as long as there is no contraindication, she can deliver per vaginal irrespective of the fact that she is HIV positive. “What is important is that if she is HIV positi.