Teferi Yidenek Alene
Background: Syphilis is caused by bacteria known as Treponema palladium and it is transmitted through sexual contact, via blood transfusion, or transplacentally from a pregnant woman to her fetus. Among STIs, syphilis and HIV are significant public health problems in Ethiopia and causes several adverse pregnancy outcomes. Thus this study aims to assess magnitude of both infections among pregnant women attending antenatal care in Debre Berhan Public health institutions.
Objective: To determine sero-prevalence of Syphilis and HIV infections and associated factors among pregnant women attending antenatal care in Debre Berhan Public health institutions, North Shewa, Ethiopia, 2018.
Methods: Facility based retrospective cross-sectional study (record review) was conducted in Debre Berhan public health institutions from Sep 2015 to August 2017 on individual ANC chart using structured checklist. Quality of the data was maintained through providing training to the data collector, and collecting the data using pretested checklist. Finally data was entered to EPI Data3.02; descriptive and binary logistic regression analysis was done using SPSS version16, variables in multivariate analysis with p-value < 0.05 will be considered statistically significant.
Result: In this study, overall 7 (1.8%) and 28 (7.2%) of pregnant mothers were positive for syphilis and HIV respectively. The highest number of syphilis and HIV prevalence were reported in 2015.Previous history of STD for syphilis (AOR 9.4; 95% CI 1.6-25) and HIV (AOR 8.2; 95% CI 2.2-31.8), previous history still birth for syphilis (AOR 4.9; 95% CI 1.1-23.4) and HIV (AOR 5.6; 95% CI 1.8-17.1) and partner HIV test positive for HIV (AOR 11.9; 95%CI 1.18- 20.6).
Conclusion and Recommendation: Syphilis and HIV infections were prevalent among pregnant women in our study area. Risk factors for both infections were mother history of STD and history of still birth, so health information dissemination for every pregnant woman is important during her ANC visit and partner testing is recommended.
