U.S. to Conduct AIDS Test of Newborns

ATLANTA — Newborn babies in 30 cities, including Los Angeles, will be checked for AIDS antibodies in anonymous tests that the federal Centers for Disease Control hopes will help assess the spread of the AIDS virus in child-bearing women and newborns.

The tests are in addition to a CDC-sponsored study planned for later this year in California, in which every infant born in the state during a three-month period will be tested anonymously for acquired immune deficiency syndrome antibodies.

The surveys, at selected hospitals in the 30 cities, are part of a series of federal studies designed to eventually test 1.6 million Americans a year for AIDS.

Blood samples from the newborns will be sent without names for testing, CDC spokeswoman Gayle Lloyd said Monday. The study hopes to determine the extent to which AIDS has penetrated heterosexual women of child-bearing age, thought to be a low-risk group.

Other programs, some of which are already under way, will test blood samples from sexually transmitted disease clinics, drug clinics, tuberculosis clinics, military recruits, job corps blood donors and others, she said. Some tests will be routine and anonymous, while others will be voluntary with confidential results, she said.

Early results are expected next fall, and the findings will probably determine which programs are continued, she said. The CDC is helping finance the programs at an estimated cost of $47 million for fiscal 1988.

The newborns will be tested in 20 cities with a high AIDS incidence, including Los Angeles. The other high incidence cities are San Francisco; Atlanta; Baltimore; Boston; Chicago; Cleveland; Dallas; Denver; Detroit; Houston; Jacksonville, Fla.; Miami; New Orleans; New York; Newark, N.J.; Richmond, Va.; San Juan, Puerto Rico; St. Louis, and Washington.

Tests will also be done in the low-incidence cities of Albuquerque, N.M.; Honolulu; Kansas City, Mo.; Memphis, Tenn.; Minneapolis; New Haven, Conn.; Phoenix; Rochester, N.Y.; Salt Lake City, and Seattle.