Causes and Predictors of Mortality among HIV-Exposed Infants in Rural North-Central Nigeria: Results of a Simple Verbal Autopsy Survey

Background HIV-exposed infants (HEI) who die before diagnosis or treatment initiation, or who die in spite of being HIV-free constitute missed opportunities for reducing infant mortality. Verbal autopsy (VA) has been successfully applied in the collection of data to determine symptoms and circumstances surrounding death among infants, children and adults among populations that lack vital registration systems. There is little available data on rates and causes of death among HIV-exposed infants (HEI) in Nigeria. We used VA to characterize attributable causes and predictors of mortality among HEI in rural North-Central Nigeria.Methods Pregnant women living with HIV and HEI were enrolled at rural primary healthcare facilities and followed-up for 12 months, post-delivery. A simple 21-item VA instrument was used to collect infant mortality information from mothers, other family members, mentor mothers, and/or healthcare workers. Attributable causes of death were determined by physician coding. Multivariate logistic regression was performed to determine independent predictors of mortality.Results Data from 455 HIV-exposed infected and uninfected fetus/infant-mother pairs were analyzed. All mothers received anti-retroviral therapy. Seventy-five (16.5%) fetuses/infants died during gestation and within 12 months post-delivery. Forty (53.3%) deaths occurred in utero . The 12-month infant mortality risk among HEI in our study was 88.7/1,000. Among the 35 live-born infants, birth asphyxia (6/17, 35.3%) and sepsis (7/18, 38.9%) were the most common causes of death in the neonatal and post-neonatal periods, respectively. Unadjusted estimates showed that a greater proportion of deceased infants had mothers who did not deliver at a health facility (53.3 vs 31.8%, p=0.003), and who were newly HIV-diagnosed during pregnancy (69.3 vs 50.8%, p=0.029). Infants receiving nevirapine prophylaxis within 72 hours were less likely to have died (aOR = 0.40, 95% CI: 0.2-0.9).Conclusions Early HIV diagnosis and treatment among women of child-bearing age, maternal access to facility delivery and timely infant antiretroviral prophylaxis should be programmatically strengthened to reduce HEI mortality. Additionally, robust monitoring and evaluation systems are needed to track and record deaths among HEI.