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Date Posted: 20:21:09 07/24/02 Wed
Author: moonotter
Subject: Vertical HIV Transmission in US Drops to Lowest Rate in 10 Years

Vertical HIV Transmission in US Drops to Lowest Rate in 10 Years




By Deborah Mitchell
BARCELONA, Spain (Reuters Health) Jul 09 - The number of US infants born with HIV infection has dropped 80% in the past 10 years, US health officials said on Tuesday.

Increased HIV testing of pregnant women and the use of antiretroviral drugs to prevent vertical transmission cut the number of infected infants from a peak of 1760 in 1991 to about 300 in 2000, researchers from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) said.

"This is one of our country's greatest success stories in the HIV epidemic," Dr. Robert Janssen, of CDC, told reporters at the XIV International AIDS Conference.

HIV kills 1600 children a day worldwide, according to UNAIDS figures. Inexpensive antiretroviral drugs, such as AZT and nevirapine, can prevent a high proportion of mothers from passing the virus to their infants if the drugs are given before and after delivery.

The US, Europe and the United Nations have all recently said that preventing mother-to-child transmission should be a priority for prevention programs, and Dr. Janssen said the latest figures served to confirm this.

"We must continue our efforts to extend these successes in the US and continue to emphasize the urgent need for perinatal prevention in the developing world," he said.

The study was conducted by CDC researcher Dr. Patricia Fleming and others, who based their estimates on cases of HIV infections and AIDS reported in 25 states with longstanding reporting of the disease, together with AIDS prevalence data from across the US.

In 2000, between 129,500 and 135,300 women between the ages of 13 and 44 years were HIV-infected, compared with about 80,000 in 1991, Dr. Fleming said.

Because vertical prophylaxis regimens are not completely effective, further reductions in the number of infected infants will be difficult until the number of infected women declines.

"The simple fact is that the best way to prevent new infections in babies is to prevent infections in women," she said in a statement.




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