Participants who tested positive were referred to HIV clinics for confirmatory blood tests and linkage to care.
Women provide informed consent for blood sample collection, linkage to medical records and complete questionnaires related to prenatal health, service utilization, social support, emotional and physical health, demographics, and breast and infant feeding.
Using the patients' civil registry numbers, which are unique to every Danish citizen, information on total and cause-specific mortality was obtained from the time of blood sampling (through linkage to the Danish Civil Registration System) until 7 June 2011, and from the National Register of Causes of Death (NRCD) until 31 December 2009.
The most common reason for discontinuation from the study was active method of withdrawal (44%), including but not limited to: loss of interest, lack of time, reasons related to blood collections or linkage to medical records (although participants were not obligated to provide consent for these processes to participate), and lack of partner support.
In addition, there were strong taboos surrounding menstrual blood and its linkages to witchcraft which posed a challenge to identifying other disposal approaches, and in particular, women's fears that cleaners would be able to identify their used materials.
In order to determine whether patients subsequently accessed an acute care service in the CHR within two weeks of blood culture draw, linkages to two regional databases were performed.
An appointment may involve delivery of confirmatory blood test results and linkage to care for newly identified patients.
For the initial study of linkage disequilibrium, blood samples were selected from 100 patients who presented in 1999 with uncomplicated malaria, having acquired infection in the Thai-Myanmar border region.
Na+/K+-ATPase activity (NKA); blood plasma osmolality (OSMO); linkage group (LG); proportion of experimental variation (PEV).
