Highlights of the autumn CHIVA meeting

Pat Tookey gave an update of UK epidemiological data. There has been a continuing rise in antenatal seroprevalence as judged by anonymous unlinked Guthrie card testing. About 1:230 women delivering live babies in London are HIV infected.

The most dramatic rise has been in Outer London over the last two years. In the rest of the UK and Scotland, approximately 1:5000 women are infected. Antenatal testing rates are improving but do not look likely to meet the Dept of Health targets of 90% uptake by the end of 2002.

Di Gibb used the Collaborative HIV Paediatric Surveillance study (which captures data on 85% of infected children living with HIV in the UK and Ireland) to draw attention to the improvements in survival for infected children over time.

Crude mortality in vertically infected children by calendar year in this analysis (n=687) showed that the estimated number of children in this follow up rose at approximately 50 children each year from100 in 1991 to 500 in 2000, with a slight fall to 490 in 2001.

In the years 1993-1996 approximately 10-20 deaths were recorded each year, dropping to less than five for 1997 and 1998, no deaths in 1999 and 2000 and a small increase to less than five in 2001.