Optimizing Integrated PMTCT Services in Rural North-Central Nigeria

Each year, an estimated 230,000 HIV-infected women in need of services for prevention of mother-to-child transmission of HIV (PMTCT) give birth in Nigeria, more than in any other nation in the world. Vanderbilt University (VU), through its affiliate, Friends in Global Health (FGH), is currently supporting HIV/AIDS services in North-Central Nigeria. These sites are predominantly rural primary health centers (PHCs) where shortages of high-cadre health care providers and insufficient laboratory capacity to perform CD4+ cell count testing have been major barriers to effective PMTCT scale-up. A systematic reassignment of patient care responsibilities coupled with the adoption of point-of-care (POC) CD4+ cell count testing will facilitate the ability of lower-cadre health providers to manage PMTCT care, including the provision and scale-up of antiretroviral treatment (ART) to pregnant women in these rural, decentralized sites. A system wherein men are facilitated to accompany their wives to ANC appointments will create an important opportunity to address entrenched gender norms. The investigators therefore propose using community and facility-based measures to encourage male partners to accompany their spouses for ANC. As influential community members, male partners can assist their spouses to utilize culturally-sensitive, sustainable and integrated PMTCT care provided by lower-cadre providers in these resource-constrained settings. The investigators propose a parallel, cluster randomized trial to evaluate the impact of a family-focused PMTCT package that includes: 1) task-shifting to lower-cadre providers at PMTCT sites; 2) POC CD4+ cell count testing; (3) integrated mother-infant care; and (4)) a prominent role for influential family members (male partners), working in close partnership with community-based health workers/volunteers. The specific aims of this study are: 1. To evaluate whether implementation of the integrated PMTCT package in primary level antenatal cl