Résumé
Lack of health education in the peri-urban milieu causes a decreased or non usage of ANC services, hence many women are not sensitized against AIDS and can therefore not benefit from the interventions of the PMTCT programme. In this light, a study was conducted between April and November 2003 in North Province, Cameroon to assess the impact of counseling in the labour room amongst women who had not attended any ANC. Counseling for free and voluntary HIV testing was administered to women admitted into the labour room with a cervical dilatation of less than 7cm. Blood samples were collected from those who gave their consent. Positive samples from rapid test were confirmed by the ELISA technique. Five hundred and seventy-one women were recruited. The average rate of acceptability for HIV testing and seroprevalence were 93.0%.[95% CI: 90.6%; 95.4%] and 10.9% [95% CI: 7.84%; 14.04%] respectively. A significant difference (X-2=101.35%; p < 1%0) was found when the acceptability for HIV testing in this group of women was compared with the 69.9% noticed in the group of women who attended at least one antenatal visit. The seroprevalence of 10.9% observed in this study is also significantly higher than the 5.98% observed in the later population. These findings stress the need for counseling in the labour room in the peri-urban milieu to catch up the inappropriate or reduced use of ANC.