Analysis of the Prevention of Mother-to-Child Transmission (PMTCT) Service utilization in Ethiopia: 2006-2010

INTRODUCTION: Although progressive improvements have been made in the coverage and quality of prevention of HIV/AIDS mother-to-child transmission (PMTCT) services in Ethiopia, the national coverage remained persistently low. Analysis of the cascaded PMTCT services can reveal the advancements made and the biggest hurdles faced during implementation. OBJECTIVE: To examine the progresses and unaddressed needs in access and utilization of PMTCT services in Ethiopia from 2006 to 2010 thereby developing best-fit regression models to predict the values of key PMTCT indicators at critical future points. METHODS: Five-year national level PMTCT data were analyzed in a cascaded manner. Five levels of analysis were used for ten major PMTCT indicators. These included description of progress made, assessment of unaddressed needs, developing best-fit models, prediction for future points and estimation using constant prevalence. Findings were presented using numerical and graphic summaries. RESULTS: Based on the current trend, Ethiopia could achieve universal ANC coverage by 2015. The prevalence of HIV at PMTCT sites has shown a four-fold decrease during the five-year period. This study has found that only 53% of known HIV-positive mothers and 48% of known HIV-exposed infants have received ARV prophylaxis. Based on assumption of constant HIV prevalence, the estimated ARV coverage was found to be 11.6% for HIV positive mothers and 8.4% for their babies. CONCLUSION: There has been a remarkable improvement in the potential coverage of PMTCT services due to rapid increase in the number of PMTCT service outlets. However, the actual coverage remained low. Integration of PMTCT services with grassroots level health systems could unravel the problem.