[HIV antibody positive children in Denmark].

The AIDS-committee of The Danish Society of Paediatrics has done a nation-wide study among infants and children under the age of 15 with AIDS or HIV-antibodies in preparation for planning prevention and treatment. Clinical data have been collected from the Departments of Paediatrics and Infectious Diseases, Haemophilia, Dermatology and Internal Medicine up to 1 March 1993. The study includes 44 infants with a risk of vertical transmission from the mother and 16 children with haemophilia. No cases were found to be infected by blood-transfusion. Twenty of the 44 infants with congenital HIV-antibodies were HIV-infected. Seven of them died from AIDS, 10 currently have AIDS and three are asymptomatic. Seventeen infants are well and HIV-antibody negative after the age of 18 months. Seven infants still have unclarified status, but all are well. Three of the patients with haemophilia are dead. The 13 others do not have AIDS. It is surprising that most of the infected infants' mothers were not known to be infected before the infants got sick. Thus infected infants exist in families who are not suspected to be HIV-infected. The AIDS-committee of The Danish Society of Paediatrics has proposed recommendations for HIV-testing of infants and children. HIV-infected families need comprehensive psychosocial care. The risk-factor from blood-transfusion is now eliminated, but vertical transmission will continue to be a risk-factor. The size of the problem in Denmark will not be known until an epidemiological study of pregnant women has been conducted.