More HIV testing looms

More pregnant women look set to be tested for the virus that causes Aids as babies continue to be infected with HIV.

The Ministry of Health says midwives and doctors doing maternity work should assess the risk of HIV for both pregnant women and their partners and offer counselling and voluntary testing if they are at risk.

But research shows not all women are being offered the test - despite evidence that treatment can reduce the chances of the mothers infecting their babies - and has led some sexual health practitioners to call for routine testing.

About 25 per cent of HIV-positive pregnant women will pass the virus on to their babies, either at birth or from breastfeeding.

But drug treatments, a Caesarean and using baby formula can cut that risk to as little as 2 per cent.

A group of health workers met ministry officials last month.

Some urged routine testing while others believed the current guidelines were adequate and routine testing would be a waste of money.

Screening all women for HIV would apparently cost about $500,000 a year, but would find only about 20 women infected with the virus out of the 56,000 who give birth every year.

Ministry deputy director-general Don Matheson said there was "a variety of opinions as to the best way forward" and the ministry was considering the best ways to tackle the issues raised.

He would not be drawn on options but said workshop participants generally agreed there was a need for increased awareness about the effectiveness of interventions to reduce mother-to-child transmissions and more education for maternity providers.

Dr Matheson said the workshop generally agreed that if the current guidelines were properly implemented, women at risk of HIV would have been identified and offered counselling and testing.

Wellington sexual health centre clinical director Jane MacDonald said better screening would pick up more infected women, but some would still be missed.

It was hard to detect women at risk because not all women were aware of the risk factors of their partners.

Dr MacDonald said researchers had found that maternity providers were not screening women, even though most women were happy to be tested once they knew there was treatment to stop their baby becoming infected.

The cost of routine testing had to be weighed against the cost of treating HIV-positive children, who often had very short lives.

Aids Foundation executive director Kevin Hague said he backed routine screening but not routine testing.

Routine testing would inevitably test large numbers of women who were not at risk and a negative result could be taken as "licence for continued unsafe sex".

Researchers had found that maternity providers' "fear of offending women" was one reason for the lack of screening for HIV.

- NZPA