HIV Screening and Awareness Survey for Pregnant Women in a Remote Area in Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region of China.
OBJECTIVE
The number of people infected with human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) in China has increased in recent years. HIV screening for pregnant women was performed in a remote area in Xinjiang, as an effort to promote universal HIV screening in pregnant women and to help prevention of mother-to-child transmission.


METHODS
Pregnant women in Burqin and Jeminay Counties in Xinjiang were offered free voluntary HIV screening. Local mid-level medical workers were trained to use Determine® HIV-1/2 kit for HIV screening. All the tested pregnant women signed a consent form, received HIV education material, and participated in an HIV knowledge survey.


RESULTS
All the 890 pregnant women receiving HIV test had negative result. Among these women, 67.6% were Kazakh and 40.9% were farmers. Survey of HIV knowledge showed that these women's awareness about mother-to-child transmission was limited. The levels of HIV knowledge were related with ethnic background, age, education and profession of the pregnant women.


CONCLUSIONS
The results suggested that HIV infection had not become a significant problem among the pregnant women in this remote area of Xinjiang, but continued efforts to improve the awareness of HIV, especially the knowledge about mother-to-child transmission of HIV, in pregnant women were needed.
Department of Microbiology, Xinjiang Medical University, Urumoqi, China.
Yuping
Y
Sun
Karlene
K
Hewan-Lowe
Qiang
Q
Wu
Jiang
J
Yu
Zhiqiu
Z
Guo
Yali
Y
Han
Yujiang
Y
Fan
Xianfang
X
Qin
Ping
P
Xu
Janati
J
Bolatihan
Mayinuer
M
Hoshaerbai
Luping
L
Yuan
Heng
H
Hong