Research shows women living with HIV/AIDS were six times more likely to die while giving birth due to their body's reduced immunity, which at times leads to excessive bleeding and other birth-related complications that compromise the mother's health.

"HIV is causing an increment in the number of maternal deaths. Women with HIV are five-to-six times more likely to die due to their compromised immunity," UNFPA's Senior Programme Adviser on Reproductive and Mate rnal Health, Dr Eric Akinyele, told PANA in a telephone interview from his base in Johannesburg Thursday.

The latest scientific research shows that women living with HIV were six times more likely to die at childbirth despite the introduction of an integrated antiretroval (ARV) therapy for almost all mothers visiting a health facility before giving birth.

The HIV positive women in South Africa recorded 323 deaths out of every 100,000 live births while the HIV negative mothers recorded 148 deaths out of every 100,000 live births, which means the HIV positive women were twice more likely to die at birth.

"We need to put all efforts together to address maternal health," Dr Akinyele said. "We need individual accountability, we need community awareness and we need community health extension programmes to reduce these deaths."

South African health authorities have stepped up their own fight against the HIV -linked maternal deaths and other causes by putting in place an advanced health information management system, making health statistics readily available, Dr Akinyele said.

In Southern and Eastern Africa region, childbirth deaths appear to take a heavy toll among the women living with HIV.

It is responsible for between 21 and 55 percent of the deaths recorded in most hospitals.

Botswana, one of the countries in the region with an equally advanced healthcare system, records 44 percent of deaths linked to HIV, according to UNFPA.

Malawi records an average of 32 percent of those deaths while Mozambique records 38 percent. In Eastern Africa, Uganda records 21 percent of childbirth-related deaths as a result of complications arising due to HIV while Kenya's stands at 27 percent.

UNFPA is partnering with the UN Children's Fund (UNICEF) to launch a programme in Kenya in 2010 to pilot the initial offensive against the HIV-linked maternal deaths.

Dr Akinyele said the greatest challenge for organizations involved in the efforts to improve the welfare of the women is the lack of coordination.

"We are working with the Ministries of Health and the Ministries of Finance to monitor and coordinate maternal healthcare so that the money that is available can be used to replicate the efforts," the UNFPA expert asserted.

He said the investments in the health information monitoring had helped authorit ies in Southern Africa to detect the high number of deaths associated with HIV/AIDs.