Aids in US infants down 80%

The number of babies born with HIV has fallen by 80% in the last decade in what is being hailed as one of the biggest successes in the fight against Aids.

An international conference in Spain was told that the number of newborns with the virus had fallen from a high of 1,760 in 1991 to an estimated 280-370 by 2000.

The success was put down to voluntary HIV testing, the counselling of pregnant women and the use of life-saving drugs, said the study by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Dr Robert Janssen said: "It represents a tremendous success."

However he also warned that drug treatments were not 100% effective and that eliminating the virus in infants would become more difficult as the number of women living with HIV in the US grew.

Data presented at the 14th International Aids Conference showed that HIV infections appeared to have stabilised at 10,000 new cases each quarter but African-American women accounted for about half of those.

The study also estimated that up to 135,300 women aged 13-44 in the US were living with HIV.