A call for the mandatory testing of all pregnant women for HIV will be made at a HIV/sexual health conference in Dublin today.
Prof Fiona Mulcahy, director of the sexual health clinic at St James's Hospital in Dublin, will make the call when she addresses the joint conference of the British HIV Association and the British Association for Sexual Health and HIV at the Burlington Hotel this afternoon.
There is a 25 per cent risk of transmitting HIV to a baby if the mother is HIV positive but that risk falls to less than 1 per cent if the virus is picked up in antenatal screening and treated.
Prof Mulcahy said there was a real possibility that a child who contracts HIV from its mother may sue a doctor in the future, because of the failure to identify the infection and take remedial action in time.
Pregnant women are currently offered this test with a series of other blood tests when they book into a hospital for antenatal care. Some 95 per cent of women accept the test, but Prof Mulcahy said that, in some cases, the test may be offered in a way that encourages the patient to reject it.
Speaking to The Irish Times yesterday, Prof Mulcahy also expressed concern at the rising incidence of HIV in this State in recent years.
The incidence of the virus among heterosexuals has more than doubled in recent years, with more than 70 per cent of these cases originating in sub-Saharan Africa. Some 182 newly diagnosed cases here, including three children, were reported to the Health Protection Surveillance Centre in the first six months of last year.
Meanwhile, Dr Margaret Johnson, chairwoman of the British HIV Association, said the outlook for HIV patients had become very positive in recent years, due to developments in drug therapies. "With new and very effective drugs, there's no reason why people with HIV shouldn't have a normal life expectancy," she said.
She also expressed concern at the high level of HIV cases that were not identified until the illness was at a developed stage. An estimated 50 per cent of HIV patients did not start their treatment at the right time because HIV had not been diagnosed at an early stage.
Dr Johnson said it was up to the health services to do more to identify the people at risk.
The conference also heard about a survey which found that almost half of people with genital herpes did not discuss the infection with their sexual partners.
Jane Bickford of Chelsea and Westminster Hospital in London told the conference that 46 per cent of people she surveyed had not discussed genital herpes with their sexual partners. Of the 54 per cent who did discuss the infection, 44 per cent did so before their first sexual contact.
"Disclosure of diagnoses to sexual partners tended to occur within the context of established relationships," she said.
Ms Bickford said she was shocked at the stigma still felt by many people with genital herpes. "This stigma stunned me. It's something you would have expected 100 years ago, but not now."
