Mother-to-child transmission of human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) in Ireland: a prospective study.

Symptomatic HIV infection was first diagnosed in an Irish child in 1985. A prospective study was initiated to determine the vertical transmission rate (VTR) of HIV and the average age of infant seroreversion and to monitor clinical, immunologic and virologic evidence for HIV infection in seroreverters. Ninety three HIV positive infants have been prospectively identified since 1985.

An outbreak of hepatitis A among Irish haemophiliacs.

Background: An outbreak of hepatitis A (HAV) occurred in 1992 in Irish haemophilia A patients treated with high purity solvent-detergent (SD) treated factor VIII. Similar outbreaks were reported in Italy, Germany and Belgium. The aim of this study was to investigate the outbreak, and to test the hypothesis that it was caused by exposure to SD-treated factor VIII.

MMR vaccination, measles epidemiology and sero-surveillance in the Republic of Ireland.

Objective: Following the introduction of a national measles and subsequent MMR vaccination programme, to determine the susceptibility of 3-14-year-old children to measles, mumps and rubella and to relate the results to the epidemiology of measles and the need for vaccination policy changes.

Design: Cross-sectional sero-survey and trends in measles notifications and mortality.

Setting: Paediatric hospital outpatient departments in Dublin.

Avoiding false positive HIV results on life assurance proposers: the necessity for follow-up.

The serological reaction to HIV infection is almost invariably a dynamic progression towards strong reactivity to a wide range of viral antigens. Serological diagnosis should therefore be based either on the presence of this wide range in a single specimen or on the demonstration of increasing activity between two specimens collected at an interval of two or more weeks and tested in parallel. When a specimen is reactive a second should in any case be collected to check the identity of the first.