The annual number of infants born infected with HIV has dropped steadily in the United States in recent years, to only 69 in 2013. Nevertheless, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) is not satisfied, saying that figure still represents “missed opportunities.”

Publishing their findings in JAMA Pediatrics, CDC researchers analyzed data from the National HIV Surveillance System from 2002 to 2013 to come up with estimates related to HIV care for expectant mothers living with the virus and prevention of the transmission of the virus to their newborns.

In 2002, an estimated 216 babies were born with HIV, a rate that dropped steadily, hitting 69 in 2013. Among those children born with HIV during the overall study period, 63 percent were born to African-American mothers and 18.3 percent to Latina mothers.

Among about 1,800 births of infants diagnosed with HIV during the study period, 41.8 percent of the mothers were diagnosed with the virus prior to that pregnancy. Broken down by era, 236 mothers (37.5 percent of those in that era) were diagnosed with HIV before their pregnancy during the 2002 to 2005 period, compared with 120 (51.5 percent of those in that era) during 2010 to 2013.

The proportion of the mothers in each era that received all three pillars of antiretroviral treatment as prevention for mother-to-child transmission of the virus—prenatal, during labor and for the infant following birth—was 22.4 percent during 2002 to 2005 and 31.8 percent during 2010 to 2013.

Five Southern states, including Florida, Texas, Georgia, Louisiana and Maryland, accounted for 687 (38 percent) of infants born with HIV during the study period.

In 2013, the national birth rate of children born with HIV was about 1.75 per 100,000 live births. Given the CDC’s target is a rate of 1 per 100,000, the researchers said the current rate represented “missed opportunities for prevention…among infected infants and their mothers in recent years.”

To read the study abstract, click here.

To read the Reuters Health article, click here.