Researchers have found that five out of every 100 HIV-infected mother develop active TB within one year after delivery. In India, the chances of death for such mothers are two-fold and for infants it’s three-fold.A study recently published in the Clinical Infectious Diseases journal has concluded that there’s high incidence of postpartum TB among Indian HIV-infected women and associated postpartum maternal and infant death. The study was jointly conducted by scientists at Pune’s B J Medical College, Johns Hopkins’ School of Medicine and the Bloomberg School of Public Health, US. Jayagowri Sastry, one of the researchers, told The Indian Express that more than 100,000 pregnant women have been educated, counselled and tested for HIV in Pune since 2002 as part of an ongoing US National Institutes of Health-funded clinical trial to prevent transmission of HIV from mother to child. As part of this study, mothers and their infants were followed up to one year postpartum and their health status assessed frequently, including their risk for TB and death. A total of 715 HIV-infected mothers and their infants were kept under watch for a year after delivery at the Sassoon General Hospital in Pune. Twenty-four of the 715 HIV infected women developed TB out of which three died. Among 23 infants with mothers infected with TB, two were diagnosed with TB and four infants died. This has led the researchers to recommend the active screening and targeted use of isoniazid preventive therapy among HIV-infected women in India
