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Biotech / Medical : Trinity Biotech (TRIBY) -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Scott H. Davis who wrote (7880)	1/23/1998 2:07:00 PM
From: AgAuUSA	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 14328

British doctors call for more HIV testing Copyright c 1998 Nando.net Copyright c 1998 Reuters Nando's special report: 1997 Year in Review LONDON (January 22, 1998 10:49 p.m. EST nando.net) - British doctors and AIDS charities urged the government on Friday to make HIV testing more readily available after a study showed a huge jump in the number of mothers in London infected with the virus. Researchers called for urgent action to make routine ante-natal HIV testing available to prevent vertical transmission from mother to child. The plea came after a major study showing a six-fold increase between 1988 and 1996 in the number of London mothers infected with the virus that causes AIDS. "If diagnosis rates remain low, the numbers of vertically acquired infections in the United Kingdom will increase substantially," Dr. Angus Nicoll of the AIDS and Sexually Transmitted Disease Center warned in a report published in the British Medical Journal. "Women who know they are HIV-infected wish to avoid having an infected child, but to achieve this, diagnostic ante-natal HIV testing must be more available and accessible, especially in London." Nicoll is one of a dozen scientists who conducted the eight-year study into HIV among pregnant women in Britain. Infections were most prevalent among black African women and those with a history of injecting drugs. But the study also found that women not considered at high risk were infected. Unlike France and the Netherlands, which instituted legislation to assure that all pregnant women are offered HIV tests, or the United States, which produced guidelines, Britain has no formal policy for testing. Whether a pregnant woman will be offered an HIV test often depends on the hospital she attends and the doctor who treats her. The British Medical Journal described the position on testing as "shameful and negligent." "The indifference of some obstetricians and an unwillingness by many midwives to broach the issue of testing has meant that Britain has fallen behind other countries in providing pregnant women with access to HIV testing," the journal said in a commentary. The National AIDS Trust and the BMA Foundation for AIDS supported the call for a standard testing policy. "There's now compelling evidence in favor of testing," said Hilary Curtis, executive director of the foundation. In a separate study in the British Medical Journal, Dr Wendy Simpson of the University of Edinburgh found that offering the HIV test to all women, instead of only those who asked for it, resulted in a higher uptake. Doctors know that HIV infection from mother to child can be reduced by at least two thirds with treatments at birth and by abstaining from breast-feeding. Figures for 1994-95 revealed that only 16 percent of pregnant women with HIV in southeastern England and London were identified before the birth of their children. By PATRICIA REANEY, Reuters