Fed: HIV babies show all pregnant women should be screened: Drs

AAP General News (Australia)
08-01-2004
Fed: HIV babies show all pregnant women should be screened: Drs

By Kylie Walker, National Medical Correspondent

SYDNEY, Aug 1 AAP - Australia's flawed approach to HIV/AIDS continued to allow babies
to be born HIV-positive, public health and HIV experts said today.

Despite well-known and available prevention strategies, a small number of babies continue
to be born HIV-positive in Australia, Sydney-based paediatric HIV expert Associate Professor
John Ziegler and Brisbane-based public health authority Dr Nicholas Graves said.

"The solution to this calamity is to prevent HIV infection in women and when it does
occur, to identify it before or during pregnancy," they said in today's Medical Journal
of Australia.

"Unfortunately, national policies on antenatal screening are flawed."

Between 1998 and 2002, 103 pregnant Australian women were aware they were HIV-positive.

None of their infants were infected.

"During the same period, HIV was diagnosed in eight of the 15 infants born to mothers
who became aware of their status only after giving birth," the doctors said.

HIV antibody testing is recommended for all pregnant women in the Northern Territory,
NSW and Queensland, but the national standard of testing only women deemed to be at risk
still applies in other states and territories.

"The facts show that existing practice still fails to identify a number of preventable
cases of mother-to-child transmission," the doctors said.

All pregnant women - not just those deemed "at risk" - should be routinely screened
for HIV/AIDS, they said.

"Most pregnant women with HIV infection in (western nations) can expect an infection
risk of less than two per cent," Prof Ziegler and Dr Graves said.

"This ability to interrupt perinatal transmission of HIV is, of course, only possible
if the mother's status is known."

The costs of universally testing pregnant women would be offset by the economic benefits
gained by prolonging and improving the lives of those women diagnosed and preventing the
further transmission of HIV/AIDS, they said.

"The time has now come for public health and political courage to make it national
policy that HIV testing be recommended for all women receiving antenatal care," the doctors
said.

AAP kbw/tma/bwl

KEYWORD: HIV

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