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MoCHiV

History and background

The Swiss Mother & Child HIV Cohort Study is a merger of the former Neonatal HIV Study (founded in 1986 by C. Kind, St. Gallen) and the Swiss HIV and Pregnancy Study (founded in 1989 by C. Rudin, Basel). Initially the main goal was to collect data of children born to HIV-infected mothers and of HIV infected children to study vertical transmission and natural history of HIV infection in infected children. The HIV and pregnancy study focussed at pregnancy in HIV infected women and on risk factors involved in vertical transmission.

The principle of the study remained the same from the beginning. HIV-infected pregnant women, their offspring and HIV-infected children have been followed according to good clinical practice as defined by expert panels, such as the FKT (Fachkommission Klinik und Therapie AIDS) and the PAGS (Pediatric AIDS Group of Switzerland). Demographic information, clinical and laboratory data are collected with a set of structured questionnaires. Data collection is anonymous.

Integration of MoCHiV in the SHCS

In 1998 it was decided to build a single cohort, named The Swiss Mother & Child HIV Cohort Study (MoCHiV) and in 2003 MoCHiV was integrated in the adult Swiss HIV Cohort Study (SHCS).

Thus, longitudinal data in women included in both cohorts became available for research, rendering MoCHiV a very unique mother-child cohort. In other such cohorts, pregnancy is an inclusion criterion and the available information is limited to pregnancy and a short follow-up period after delivery.

In order to improve the ongoing data collection, several adaptations have been made since the inclusion of MoCHiV into the SHCS :

• New questionnaires have been created
• All pregnant woman of the SHCS should be included in MoCHiV. If this is not possible, the reason is documented. Only mother-child pairs will be included, if written informed consent has been given for anonymous data collection of the mother (SHCS) and her child or children (MoCHiV). Abortions and interruptions are documented.
• Data collection and transfer to the data center in Lausanne is organised as in the SHCS : the local data manger controls the completeness of the questionnaire before sending it to the data center.
• The obstetric questionnaires are restricted to questions related to pregnancy and delivery. They contain more precise information regarding obstetric history and complications and risk factors connected to these events.
• Other data on mothers are collected with the SHCS questionnaires
• The questionnaire for infected children is similar to the questionnaire used for HIV-infected adults in the SHCS. Infected children are followed every 6 months until the entry in the SHCS at around 16 to 20 years.
• Questionnaires for non-infected children exposed to maternal ART during pregnancy focus on potential long term adverse events of this multi-drug exposure. Follow-up takes place once yearly until the age of five years