Technology Assessment Of Voluntary HIV Screening For Pregnant Women In Shenzhen City In 2002

A project on screening HIV antibody in Shenzhen's pregnant women was initiated in 2002. The purpose of the project was to offer reference evidence for decision making in promoting the application of screening technology in HIV/AIDS prevention and control through using concepts of health technology assessment and reviewing relevant literature.The results show that there were 13 HIV infected out of 69976 pregnant women (spouses of people with HIV/AIDS included) in 2002. These HIV positive included 10 pregnant women, one new-boms and two spouses. Through the screening, 1.9 new borns were avoided to be infected with HIV; 129.8 life years were saved; the effectiveness-cost rate of the project was 1.24:1 (though obvious, the long-term effect couldn't be forecasted); the effective-cost was largely influenced by serological HIV positive rate in population and screening compliance (i.e. the higher serological HIV positive rate in population and screening compliance are, the higher the effectiveness-cost rate is.). In addition, the safety of screening was still to further explore, mainly including the side effects caused by antiviral drugs and Caesarean birth of HIV positive pregnant women who insisted on delivery. From ethical and moral views, the universal screening precedes the selective screening.Based on the main findings mentioned above, the author put forward the following strategies: improve the pre-test and post-test consultation, promote the compliance of screening and involve more pregnant women in screening; make prenatal screening policies and offer further health education for all first-diagnosis and testing doctors; strengthen the follow-up services for HIV infected accepting treatments, and supervise likely risks of treatments.