Abstract:

Background: More than one-third of deaths during the first five years of life are attributed to Undernutrition, which are mostly preventable through economic development and public health measures. To alleviate this problem, it is necessary to determine determinants of Undernutrition. Therefore, this study assessed prevalence and factors associated with Undernutrition in HIV infected children who are 6-59 months of age of ART in Sekou Toure regional referral hospital, Mwanza.

Method: A hospital based cross-sectional study design was used, structured questionnaire was used to collect data from 234 children with their mother. Anthropometric measurements and determinant factors were collected, SPSS version 20.0 statistical software was used for analysis to determine prevalence and factors associated with Undernutrition.

Results: From the study, prevalence of malnutrition under study was 2.6% and 97.4% was well nourished. Factors contributed were antenatal clinic attendance in which 97.40% attended and 0.26% didn’t attend, immunization status 77.78% completed, 15.81% didn’t complete, 5.56% were in progress and 0.85% (2) respondents didn’t know immunity status of children. Breast feeding 95.30% and 4.70% were not, 28.21% took less than 6 months for exclusive breastfeeding, 67.09% took exactly 6 months and 4.70% didn’t breastfeed at all.

Conclusion: There was low prevalence of malnutrition among infected children less than five years on ART, some factors contribute that includes education levels of mothers, income sources and large number of family members. Therefore, education concerning nutrition should be given and large scale prospective studies be done to understand more.

Keywords: Malnutrition, nutrients and malnutrition.