NZ's Third World HIV baby shame

The infection of New Zealand babies with HIV from their mothers puts the country on a par with the Third World, says an infectious diseases physician.

In the country's worst year on record for new HIV cases, 183 patients were diagnosed last year, including six children infected through mother-to-child transmission.

Four were born in New Zealand to mothers who had not been diagnosed with HIV.

Dunedin Hospital infectious diseases physician Leo Celi said last night mother-to-baby transmission had been virtually eliminated in Britain and the United States and its persistence in New Zealand aligned the country with the Third World.

Babies born to women with untreated HIV have a 25 per cent to 30 per cent risk of being infected.

Putting the women on HIV drugs during pregnancy and taking other precautions reduces the risk to less than 1 per cent.

Last June, the Ministry of Health announced that all pregnant women would be offered an HIV blood test under a $2 million-a-year scheme to be introduced first in Auckland and Waikato.

Dr Celi said it was good that national screening would be offered, but the introduction of the scheme needed to be accelerated.

Children being born with HIV "gives a sense of urgency now that we might have to act a bit quicker in terms of the roll-out of the plan".

Family Planning executive director Gill Greer said four babies being infected because their mothers did not know they were HIV positive was a shocking and avoidable tragedy.

"The simple fact is these babies need not have contracted HIV had their mothers' status been known."

Yesterday's HIV statistics, from Otago University's Aids Epidemiology Group, show last year had the highest annual total of new cases since records began in 1985.

The increase is said to be driven by complacency.

Bruce Kilmister, chairman of peer support organisation Body Positive, said the infection rate could be attributable to "condom fatigue" and the public's perception that HIV/Aids was no longer the threat it once was.

"We need to establish why people are playing Russian roulette."

The heterosexual transmission rates, although static, remain the highest yet recorded in New Zealand.

Jane Bruning, the national co-ordinator for Positive Women, said most were contracting it overseas.

- Additional reporting: NZPA