Ninety percent of these children will be in Africa, illustrating the disproportionately high toll the disease takes on children of color worldwide. In 1994 a revised classification for HIV infection in children younger than 13 years was presented by Balsley et al. from the National Institutes of Health and replaced the 1987 CDC classification. This new system is based on infection status, immune status, and clinical categories.
T lymphocyte counts and percent of total lymphocytes.
Recent Research on Prevention of Perinatal Transmission Because most infants born to HIV-infected mothers acquire the infection perinatally, recent research has focused on ways to prevent transmission from mother to baby. The results also raise ethical questions about rights of women and infants, mandatory HIV testing, and equal access to health care, especially in developing countries where availability of the drug is restricted. While AZT is effective in preventing HIV infection in babies who have not yet been delivered, requiring an HIV test of newborns will not help to prevent infection with the virus, as pointed out by Yogev and Harisiades of Chicago's Children's Memorial Hospital. Instead, they propose that such testing should be replaced by a mandate requiring prenatal care providers to educate pregnant women about HIV, and routinely test them for the virus unless they refuse. A recent study by Coutsoudis of 118 infants born to HIV-infected women in Durban, South Africa indicated that vitamin A supplementation may significantly reduce morbidity for almost every condition related to HIV infection.