Author(s)

Daudi Manyanga^1,2*, Harrieth Mtae¹, Isah Mohamed Bello², Raphael Sangeda³

¹Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences, Open University of Tanzania, Dar es Salaam, Tanzania.
²Immunization and Vaccines Development, WHO, Intercountry Support Team, Harare, Zimbabwe.
³Department of Pharmaceutical Microbiology, Muhimbili University of Health and Allied Science, Dar es Salaam, Tanzania.

Introduction: In the twenty-first century, Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV) continues to be among the major public health problem globally. The disease is implicated to the result of the over 32 million deaths, and in 2018 the disease caused over 770,000 deaths globally. The disease can be transmitted from an HIV-positive pregnant woman to her child during pregnancy and childbirth about 15% - 20%, and 5% - 15% in breastfeeding. Awareness of HIV infection sexual risk behaviors and practices among male partners of pregnant mothers, therefore, plays a greater role in reducing new infection to them and the prevention of mother-to-child transmission of HIV. Methods: We conducted a retrospective case-control study involving randomly selected 314 pregnant women’s male partners attending PMTCT services in the Tabora Municipality for from September 2018 to August 2019. The enrolled study participants were randomly allocated to cases and controls and, SMS communication was sent twice weekly with 5 standard key messages from the PMTCT community guide and followed up. Results: The awareness that HIV infected mothers can transmit HIV infection in labor and during breastfeeding among their male partners was raised to 73.3% and 61.8% from 55.4% and 47.5% to study and control groups respectively following intervention. Similarly, men aged below 35 years from the study group showed an 18.3% change and a 35.4% change for those who were over 35 years old compared to the control. The difference was tested and found to be statistically significant with a p-value of 0.001 (relative risk of 0.11) and less than 0.001 (relative risk of 0.07) respectively at a 95% confidence interval. This indicates that following SMS communication intervention men from the study group were less likely to practice HIV infection sexual risk behavior compared to the control group.

HIV Infection Sexual Risk Behaviors, Male Partners of Pregnant Women, Short-Message-Services, PMTCT, Tabora, Tanzania

Manyanga, D. , Mtae, H. , Bello, I. and Sangeda, R. (2020) Influences of Mobile Phones-Based Short-Message-Services Communications on the HIV Sexual Risk Behaviors among Pregnant Women’s Male Partners, Case Control Study Tanzania. Open Journal of Social Sciences, 8, 352-368. doi: 10.4236/jss.2020.86027.