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Health Status > Children
PEDIATRIC AIDS
At the end of 2003, 9,419 cases of Acquired Immunodeficiency
Syndrome (AIDS) in children younger than 13 had been reported in
the United States since the beginning of the epidemic. Pediatric
AIDS cases represented just over one percent of all cases ever reported.
In 2003, an estimated 59 new AIDS cases were
diagnosed among children, almost 100 percent of which were transmitted
before or during birth (perinatal transmission). Since 1993, the
number of new cases of pediatric AIDS due to perinatal transmission
has declined substantially, and from 1999 to 2003 the number of
new cases among children under 13 years of age, regardless of transmission
method, decreased 68 percent. A major factor in this decline is
the increasing use of treatment before, during, and after pregnancy
to reduce perinatal transmission of the Human Immunodeficiency Virus
(HIV), the virus that causes AIDS. In 1994, the U.S. Public Health
Service recommended this treatment for all HIV-positive pregnant
women, and in 1995 routine HIV counseling and voluntary testing
for all pregnant women was recommended. It is expected that the
perinatal transmission rate will continue to decline with increased
use of aggressive treatments and obstetric procedures, such as elective
cesarean section.
Racial and ethnic minorities are disproportionately
represented among pediatric AIDS cases. As of 2003, the number of
pediatric AIDS cases ever reported among non-Hispanic White children
was less than one-third the number among non-Hispanic Black children,
and 25 percent less than that among Hispanic children.
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Horizontal Bar Chart: AIDS Cases Among Children
Under Age 13, by Race/Ethnicity: Through 2003
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Bar Chart: Estimated Numbers of AIDS Cases in Children
Under Age 13, by Year of Diagnosis: 1993-2003
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