Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: WEDNESDAY, April 3, 1991                   TAG: 9104030301
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL                    PAGE: A-4   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: CHICAGO                                LENGTH: Medium

80,000 WOMEN MAY HAVE AIDS VIRUS/ STUDY CITES I.V. DRUG USE AT ROOT OF

That means between 1,500 and 2,100 babies could be born with HIV in the United States each year, Dr. Marta Gwinn of the national Centers for Disease Control, the study's principal author, said Tuesday.

The vast majority of people infected with human immunodeficiency virus eventually develop AIDS.

"This is simply more striking evidence that HIV is a firmly established endemic disease in our society," said Dr. Richard Chaisson, director of AIDS Services at Johns Hopkins University Hospital in Baltimore.

In the study, Gwinn and colleagues from several government health agencies looked at results of blood tests from more than 1.8 million infants born from 1988 to 1990 in 38 states and Washington, D.C. They found that 2,382 tested positive for HIV antibodies, meaning that the mothers, but not necessarily the babies, carried the virus.

Since the survey period was not the same length in each of the 39 areas, researchers adjusted the statistics to produce an annual figure and then adjusted them again to account for all 50 states. They calculated that 6,079 babies were born to mothers with the virus in 1989 - or 1.5 of every 1,000 women who gave birth that year nationwide.

If the same rate were to hold true for all women of childbearing age in the United States, then as many as 80,000 women could be infected with the virus, the authors wrote.

Since previous studies have shown that roughly 30 percent of babies born to HIV-positive mothers will contract the virus, Gwinn said she estimated that between 1,500 to 2,100 babies could be born with the virus each year.

Gwinn said the authors of the study were surprised to find women in rural areas with the virus. Still, the highest numbers were in the inner cities. "Clearly, right now I.V. drug abuse is what is driving the epidemic in women and therefore children," Gwinn said.

The four areas with the highest rates of infected women were the states of New York with 5.8 per 1,000, New Jersey with 4.9 per 1,000 and Florida with 4.5 per 1,000, and the District of Columbia with 5.5 per 1,000, said the study published in today's edition of the Journal of the American Medical Association.

CDC researchers have said that every baby with AIDS born in poverty costs Medicaid $18,000 to $42,000 annually.