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Prenatal Testing for HIV

Prenatal Testing for HIV and Use of Zidovudine to Reduce Perinatal HIV Transmission

The transmission of HIV from infected pregnant women to their infants is a significant health problem in the United States and around the world. This discussion addresses a set of recommendations issued by a US Public Health Service task force (led by the National Institutes of Health and the Centers for Disease Control), urging that pregnant women be tested for HIV, counseled, and offered the option of zidovudine therapy, which has been found to significantly reduce the rate of HIV transmission during pregnancy and labor. This paper also explores the related legislative, ethical, and cultural issues surrounding mandated HIV testing of pregnant women and newborns.

The perinatal transmission of HIV has reached epidemic proportions. Perinatal transmission of HIV is now a major cause of death among children in the United States. Based upon data available as of the end of 1995, more than 90 percent of reported cases of pediatric AIDS were acquired through mother-to-infant HIV transmission (1:1664). During the past 20 years, more than 15,000 children have been infected, and more than 3,000 have died as a result of HIV infection. Without any therapeutic intervention, the rate of transmission is between 15 percent and 40 percent.

In 1994, the National Institutes of Health (NIH) announced results of a clinical trial that demonstrated the value of therapeutic intervention with zidovudine for HIV infected pregnant women. In this study, zidovudine therapy was administered orally to pregnant women and intravenously during labor. The infants received oral zidovudine for six weeks after birth. The researchers concluded that use of zidovudine reduced the risk of HIV infection in the infants by two-thirds, or from 25.5 percent to 8.3 percent.

A set of public health recommendations was issued based on the results of the study. The guidelines strongl...

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Prenatal Testing for HIV. (1969, December 31). In LotsofEssays.com. Retrieved 11:17, March 29, 2024, from https://www.lotsofessays.com/viewpaper/1680967.html