SMS Printer Pilot Programme for Early Infant Diagnosis (EID) of HIV Exposed Infants for PMTCT in Kano State, Nigeria

Background: EID tracks the effectiveness of Prevention of Mother-to-Child Transmission in HIV program. It allows HIV-exposed infants to be diagnosed using DNA- PCR at 6-weeks of age thereby allowing mothers to know the HIV status of their babies on time. It equally provides opportunities for early introduction of antiretroviral drugs and cotrimoxazole therapy for HIV-infected infants. Dried Blood Spots (DBS) is used. Samples are sent to the Lab using courier services and results are sent back to the facilities through the same method. On the average service provider receives EID test results within 28 days. The SMS printer program was piloted to show whether there would be any significant reduction in the post analytical turnaround time(TAT) between the laboratory and the facilities/the Ministry of health's

Methods: An SMS modem was installed in the primary testing lab at; Aminu Kano Teaching Hospital, satellites facilities, SMoH and FMoH. Samples were collected from four satellite facilities and transported through DHL services to the testing lab over a period of 4 months. The test results sent back to the facilities, SMOH and FMOH through an SMS printer.

Results :Murtala Hospital: DHL TAT 31.1 days,SMS TAT 16.3 days:Federal Medical Centre Azere: DHL TAT 56.2 days,SMS TAT 15.8 days :Hasiya paediatric hospital: DHL TAT N/A, SMS TAT 10.6 days: Ahmadiayyah Muslim Hospital:DHL TAT 39.9 days, SMS TAT 12.7 days

Conclusion; The pilot program demonstrated a reduction of post TAT from an average of 32.5 to 14.2 days.This method should be considered and incorporated into EID-PMTCT programming.