For many infected individuals, the use of such therapies results in substantial decreases in the rate of disease progression. Better use of prophylactic medications that prevent or delay the onset of serious opportunistic infections is also a likely contributing factor. The health department today also released statistics from 1997 on important indicators for healthy babies. According to Dr. Dempsey, the infant death rate in the state stabilized in 1997, with the same rate as in 1996 of 7.6 deaths per 1,000 live births. This number was only slightly up from the 1995 record low of 7.4 deaths per 1,000 live births.
Regional variations continue to exist.
Both St. Louis City and County experienced increases in the infant death rates in 1997 over the previous year. As Table 3 shows, the rate in St. Louis City increased from 12.4 to 14.4 deaths per 1,000 live births in 1997, while the St. Louis County infant death rate rose from 5.9 to 8.7 per 1,000 live births. It is important to interpret a single year's data with caution as trends over a longer time period are necessary for accurate interpretation. Table 2 shows the disparity between races increased for infant mortality and low birth weight in 1997. The 1997 African-American infant mortality rate of 16.3 per 1,000 live births was 2.7 times greater than the white rate of 6.1.