Panel Recommends HIV Screening For All Pregnant Women

An independent panel of medical experts suggests that all pregnant women be screened for the AIDS virus.

The U.S. Preventive Services Task Force said it made the recommendation because testing for AIDS has proved so successful at helping prevent the spread of the disease to babies.

The group reiterated its recommendation to screen all adolescents and adults at risk for HIV.

The group said in 1996 that there was insufficient evidence that screening all pregnant women had any benefit. But in Tuesday's issue of the Annals of Internal Medicine, the panel said scientific advances have changed that.

"Having a test for HIV during pregnancy is one more thing a woman can to do to try to assure having a healthy infant," said Dr. Diana Petitti, a Task Force member from Kaiser Permanente Southern California.

Mother-to-infant transmission is a preventable cause of childhood AIDS, Petitti said in a news release.

The recommendation follows a 2001 directive by the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which emphasized HIV testing "as a routine part of prenatal care."

A professor of obstetrics, gynecology and reproductive sciences at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine said many women don't know they have the virus.

Task Force Recommendation