§ Mr. Peter Bruinvelsasked the Secretary of State for Social Services what information is available to his Department about the probability of a mother with the AIDS virus giving it to her unborn child.
§ Mr. NewtonThe presence of antibodies in a baby's blood is not an accurate guide to infection and so it is not possible to determine with certainty whether a new-born baby born to an infected mother is itself infected. Also, in those babies who are born infected, it is not known how many acquired the infection at birth rather than before birth. Current expert advice is that about one in two babies born to an infected mother themselves carry the infection.
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§ Mr. Peter Bruinvelsasked the Secretary of State for Social Services if he will estimate how many children have caught the AIDS virus from their mothers prior to birth; and if he will make a statement.
§ Mr. NewtonThere have been seven reports to the communicable disease surveillance centre of AIDS cases in babies of infected mothers in the United Kingdom. To the end of February 1987, there had been 10 reports of HIV infection in the babies of infected mothers in England and Wales and by the end of December 1986 there had been 42 similar reports in Scotland.