Epidemiology, clinical features, and prognostic factors of paediatric HIV infection. Italian Multicentre Study.

486 children born to HIV-positive mothers, 57 children infected by blood products, and 1 child for whom the personal history was not available were studied. Perinatal infection had a more varied clinical picture and a worse outcome compared with infection acquired later in childhood. Severe secondary infections, neurological disorders, and hepatitis (but not lymphoid interstitial pneumonia) were linked to a high mortality rate in perinatally infected children, in whom an early onset of symptoms was also a bad prognostic factor. Perinatal HIV infection occurred in 32.6% of children born to seropositive mothers, with a higher transmission rate in children born by vaginal delivery and then breast-fed. Preterm delivery and low birthweight seemed to be related to drug abuse during pregnancy, not to intrauterine HIV infection. Girls had a higher rate of perinatal infection and, of those infected, had an increased mortality.