Trends in HIV prevalence among pregnant women in Italy, 1994 to 2002.
OBJECTIVE
The aim of the study was to analyze the trends in HIV prevalence among childbearing women through unlinked anonymous testing of newborns.


METHODS
Dried-blood specimens, residual to routine metabolic screening of newborns, were collected in Italy during the last quarter of each year, from 1994 to 2002. These samples were tested anonymously for HIV antibodies.


RESULTS
Of 844,311 specimens tested, 703 (0.83/1000; 95% confidence interval, 0.76-0.88) resulted as HIV antibody-reactive. Prevalence was 1.05 per 1000 in 1994 and decreased significantly over the following 3 years, reaching 0.60 per 1000 in 1997. Thereafter, a seroprevalence increase was recorded with a figure of 1.01 per 1000 in 1999. A decrease was again observed in 2001 and in 2002, when the seroprevalence rate was significantly lower than that recorded in 1994. During the entire study period, higher prevalence rates were observed in northern Italian regions, where the highest AIDS incidence rates are recorded, and in metropolitan compared with nonmetropolitan areas. The estimated number of children born each year to an HIV-positive mother ranged from 313 to 546.


CONCLUSIONS
The number of children born to an HIV-positive mother calls for continued efforts to prevent vertical transmission of the infection.
Dipartimento di Epidemiologia, Istituto Nazionale per le Malattie Infettive L. Spallanzani IRCCS, Via Portuense 292, 00149 Rome, Italy. girardi@inmi.it
Enrico
E
Girardi
Paola
P
Vanacore
Francesco
F
Costa
Mariacarmela
M
Solmone
Claudio
C
Angeletti
Maria Rosaria
MR
Capobianchi
Giuseppe
G
Ippolito
D005260:Female; D005843:Geography; D015483:HIV Antibodies / Q000097:blood; D015658:HIV Infections / Q000453:epidemiology*; D015528:HIV Seroprevalence; D006801:Humans; D007231:Infant, Newborn; D007558:Italy / Q000453:epidemiology; D011247:Pregnancy; D011251:Pregnancy Complications, Infectious / Q000453:epidemiology*; D015995:Prevalence; D012424:Rural Population; D016036:Seroepidemiologic Studies; D013997:Time Factors; D014505:Urban Population
D015483:HIV Antibodies