The Associated Press June 6, 2004, Sunday
BYLINE: By ALICIA CHANG, Associated Press Writer
DATELINE: ALBANY, N.Y.
The number of newborns infected with HIV, the virus that causes AIDS, has reached a record low in New York, eight years after the state required that mothers be notified if their babies test positive.
Analyzing data from infants born between 1997 and 2002, the state Health Department reported a 78 percent drop in the number of infected babies born to HIV-positive mothers. The mother-to-infant infection rate was 2.4 percent in 2002 compared to 10.9 percent in 1997.
Perinatal HIV continues to be a problem worldwide. The World Health Organization estimates about 800,000 infants become infected with the virus each year, mainly in developing countries. In the United States, access to combination drug therapies and prenatal care has lowered the number of HIV-infected newborns, peaking in 1991 with 1,760 cases to as few as 280 in 2000, according to the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Since 1987, New York has routinely tested newborns for a host of medical conditions including HIV, but mothers were not notified of the results. The state credits the decline in HIV-positive newborns to a 1996 law requiring disclosure to mothers whose infants test positive so that newborns can seek immediate treatment.
No consent is needed under New York state law for the HIV test on the infant. Prenatal HIV testing for mothers is not required, but about 95 percent of women get tested by the time they are ready to give birth, according to the state.
AIDS advocacy groups lauded the drop in mother-to-infant transmission rates, but said the state cannot take all the credit because many women were already choosing to get prenatal HIV testing before the 1996 law, and taking anti-AIDS drugs to inhibit the virus from spreading to the baby.
"This is a good example of a well-intentioned piece of legislation that was poorly targeted," said Christina Kazanas, director of policy and programs at the New York AIDS Coalition. "Testing the newborn after birth is not the primary way the transmission between mother-to-baby is being prevented."
Tracie Gardner of the Legal Action Center agreed, saying the law primarily serves to let women who refused to be tested during pregnancy know their HIV status, but does not necessarily cut down on the infant infection rates.
"By the time the baby is born, you've missed critical opportunities to be able to actually prevent the baby from getting infected," she said.
Last year, the state mandated that birthing centers return results of blood tests on newborns within 12 hours instead of the original 48 hours because medical studies have shown that drug therapies worked best during that time frame.
Without treatment, about 1 in 4 HIV-infected women transmits the virus to her child. Of all the AIDS cases reported among children in the United States, 91 percent of them is through HIV transmission from mother to infant during pregnancy or by breast-feeding.
Although fewer AIDS babies were born in the United States in the last decade, federal officials worry that as the ranks of American women living with HIV grows, it may be difficult to eliminate mother-to-infant transmission.
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