Two new studies indicate that AIDS virus infection rates in childbearing women and newborns in California are much lower than those found in other areas, including New York and Massachusetts.
A study by the state Department of Health Services suggests that only 123 to 220 of the more than 500,000 babies born in California last year are likely to have been infected with the human immunodeficiency virus. The results of the anonymous testing also suggest that fewer than one in 1,000 mothers statewide is infected with HIV, the virus that causes acquired immune deficiency syndrome.
Preliminary results of a related Los Angeles County study suggest that the rate of infection in childbearing women may be even less--about four in 10,000. More detailed geographic data to pinpoint HIV infections within California and Los Angeles is not yet available.
"It is very good news," said Dr. Kenneth W. Kizer, the state health director. "It is a much lower rate than any of us had anticipated."
While no Orange County figures were available from the state study, a county public health official said there was one infant born infected last year out of about 38,000 births in the county. Since the county began keeping records on AIDS infection in 1983, four newborn cases of AIDS have been reported, according to Dr. Penny Weismuller, AIDS coordinator for the County Health Care Agency.
The results of the statewide study indicate a "tremendous opportunity" to prevent further spread of the AIDS virus into what is generally regarded as a low-risk group--heterosexual women of childbearing age, according to Dr. Peter Kerndt of the Los Angeles County Department of Health Services.
That spread is primarily thought to occur--as it has in New York City and Newark--through intravenous drug use and sexual transmission of HIV to women who are the sexual partners of intravenous drug users or bisexual men. By preventing the spread of HIV to childbearing women, the transmission of the virus to newborns can also be prevented.
Recent studies have shown that 21 in 10,000 childbearing women are infected with the AIDS virus in Massachusetts and 74 in 10,000 are infected in New York, compared to 8.3 in 10,000 as found in the California study.
The explanation for the differences between the two coasts is not entirely clear. They may include differences in the interactions between gay males and intravenous drug users as well as differences in the needle-sharing practices of addicts. Sharing of contaminated drug injection equipment is a very effective mechanism of spreading HIV, hepatitis and other diseases.
