U.S. Is Close to Eliminating AIDS in Infants, Officials Say

If this is even close to being true, it's the best news on the subject I've heard in a long time.

"AIDS among infants, which only a decade ago took the lives of hundreds of babies a year and left doctors in despair, may be on the verge of being eliminated in the United States, public health officials say.

In 1990, as many as 2,000 babies were born infected with H.I.V., the virus that causes AIDS; now, that number has been reduced to a bit more than 200 a year, according to health officials. In New York City, the center of the epidemic, there were 321 newborns infected with H.I.V. in 1990, the year the virus peaked among newborns in the city. In 2003, five babies were born with the virus.

Across the country, mother-to-child transmission of H.I.V. has dropped so sharply that public health officials now talk about wiping it out.

"This is a dramatic and wonderful success story," said Dr. Vicki Peters, the head of pediatric surveillance for the New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene. This winter, Dr. Peters presented a report in Bangkok for World AIDS Day documenting the improvement in New York.

The success in fighting mother-to-child transmission, a sweeping victory for public health officials, was made possible largely because of better drugs, but aggressive public education and testing, as well as cooperation at the federal and local levels, also played a significant role.

The advent of AZT, a drug used to attack H.I.V. in the blood and central nervous system, was critical. But equally important was simply getting mothers to know their H.I.V. status before they gave birth, a problem complicated by privacy and political and social issues."