Infectious Diseases
Preventable infections on the increase
Numbers of new HIV and AIDS diagnoses and deaths in those infected through mother to infant by year of diagnosis/occurrence, UK
Between 1985 and the end of January 2001, 1,101 children aged under 14 years were diagnosed with HIV in the United Kingdom. Of all the children diagnosed, 27 per cent were known to have died.
Two-thirds of all the children diagnosed acquired their infection from their mother at or around the time of birth and most of the remainder acquired their infection through blood factor treatment for haemophilia. Almost all new infections diagnosed in children are acquired from their mother and no new infections resulting from blood transfusion have been identified.
In 2001, 4,974 new HIV cases were diagnosed. Less than 2 per cent of these were among those aged 16 to 19 years and 89 per cent of these acquired the infection through sexual transmission. In this age group, 61 per cent of the infections were in females.
Since 1995 immunisation uptake for pertussis (whooping cough) has remained at 94 per cent. However, there has been a rise in the proportion of cases in younger, unvaccinated children and adolescents. In 2000, babies less than six months old accounted for 24 per cent of all notified cases.
High immunisation uptake levels (85 per cent) for the meningococcal C conjugate vaccine (MCC) in target age groups (between 12 months to 17 years of age) resulted in an 80 per cent reduction in the incidence of meningococcal meningitis group C in these groups within the first 18 months of the start of the immunisation programme.
Measles: 4 weekly totals of notified and confirmed (oral fluid IgM measles antibody positive) cases, England and Wales
In 1988, the single-antigen measles vaccine was replaced with the Measles, Mumps and Rubella (MMR) vaccine. In 1991, there was a 90 per cent uptake of the MMR vaccine among two-year-olds. From 1996, a second dose of MMR before school entry was included in the routine immunisation programme, to ensure a high level of immunity in this age group. However, in 2001 immunisation uptake of MMR among two-year-olds had declined to 84 per cent. Between 1995 and 2001, there were 665 laboratory-confirmed cases of measles in England and Wales.
Sources: CDR (2001) Aids and HIV infection in the UK: monthly report HPA (2003) HIV and other sexually transmitted diseases in the UK 2002: Annual Report PHLS Annual Review of Communicable Disease England and Wales (2002) Chapter 4: Vaccine-preventable Diseases Van Buynder P G, Owen D et al (1999) Bordetella pertussis surveillance in England and Wales: 1995-1997, Epidemiol Infect 123, 403-411
The data on HIV are subject to reporting delay and represent reports received by the end of June 2003. Blood factor treatment for haemophilia involves replacement of the missing clotting factor in the blood by injecting a blood product that contains the clotting factor into a vein.
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