Children With AIDS
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Headline

The number of newly diagnosed cases of AIDs among teens in the United States has risen to 458 in 2003, the highest number ever recorded. (See Figure 1)

Importance¹

Human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) is a virus that weakens the body's immune system. People with HIV are diagnosed with acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS) when either their white blood cell count is below a certain threshold or they contract an AIDS indicator illness such as Pneumocystis carinii pneumonia.²

Children with HIV and AIDS can suffer from many health problems related to their illness. Twenty percent of children diagnosed with HIV develop AIDS and die within four years. The other eighty percent have a slower progression, not developing symptoms of AIDS until they are school-age or older. Children with HIV/AIDS often develop neurological problems such as trouble learning to walk, difficulty in school, and seizures. Additionally, they are sick more often and more severely than are other children.

Most children under the age of 13 with HIV are born with it or contract it while breast-feeding from mothers who have HIV/AIDS. However, due to medical advances in the mid-1990s, the number of children who contract the disease during pregnancy and childbirth has been greatly reduced.³ Most adolescents with HIV/AIDS were exposed to the virus through sexual intercourse or intravenous drug use. Adolescents with HIV/AIDS experience symptoms similar to those of children, though often they do not develop AIDS until later in life.

The following discussion of trends and subgroup breaks looks at the incidence of AIDS separately among children and adolescents.

Trends

The number of children under age 13 newly diagnosed with AIDS rose steadily from 131 in 1985 to 745 in 1995. Since 1995, there has been an equally dramatic decline from 745 to 139 in 2002, before increasing slightly to 153 cases in 2003. (See Figure 1)

The number of youth ages 13 to 19 newly diagnosed with AIDS increased from 32 in 1985 to 380 in 1995. These numbers declined to 283 in 1998, but have been increasing since then, reaching 458 in 2003, the highest number ever recorded. (See Figure 1)

Differences by Race and Ethnicity

Among children under age 13, non-Hispanic black children are much more likely than other children to be diagnosed with AIDS. In 2003, the rate of newly diagnosed AIDS cases per 100,000 for non-Hispanic black children was 15 times higher than non-Hispanic white children, 6 times higher than Asian children, and 5 times higher than Hispanic children (3.0 versus 0.2, 0.5, and 0.6, respectively). (See Table 1)

Differences by Age

For the past five years, the rate of adolescents newly diagnosed with AIDS has been higher than the rate children under 13 (458 versus 153, respectively, in 2003) has been. The types of behavior that some adolescents engage in put them at a much higher risk than children for contracting HIV. Among children under 13, nearly a third of cases were among children under age 1 in 2002, the latest year for which data are available. (See Table 1)

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Related Indicators

Child and Youth Mortality, Children with Limitations, Health Care Coverage, Sexually Active Teens

State and Local Estimates

State and select city estimates available from the HIV/AIDS Surveillance Report at: http://www.cdc.gov/hiv/stats/hasrlink.htm

International Estimates

The following report includes extensive HIV/AIDS data including children orphaned by AIDS, the HIV prevalence rates for those ages 15-24, HIV/AIDS prevalence among children ages 0-14, and more: UNAIDS. 2004. "Report on the Global HIV/AIDS Epidemic." Available at:
http://www.unaids.org/bangkok2004/report.html

National Goals⁴

Through its Healthy People 2010 initiative, the federal government has set several goals related to children and adolescents with HIV/AIDS. While there are no set goals related to HIV because not all states collect information on HIV cases, specific goals will be set once complete information can be gathered. In the meantime, there are general goals to reduce perinatal transmission of HIV and the number of HIV-positive adolescents. There is also a goal to reduce the number of AIDS cases among adolescents and adults, including goals within high risk subgroups, but there are not specific goals for adolescents. In addition, there are a number of goals related to increasing the number of adolescents receiving HIV/AIDS education.

More information is available at: http://www.health.gov/healthypeople/Document/HTML/Volume1/13HIV.htm

What Works: Programs and Interventions that May Influence this Indicator

None available at this time.

Research References

¹Unless otherwise noted, information for this section is from the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases website Backgrounder- HIV Infection in Infants and Children at http://www.niaid.nih.gov/newsroom/simple/background.htm and HIV Infection in Adolescents at http://www.niaid.nih.gov/factsheets/hivadolescent.htm

²Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Fact Sheet "What is AIDS? What Causes AIDS?" available online at http://www.cdc.gov/hiv/pubs/faq/faq2.htm

³Almario DA, McCormick MC, Stoto MA, (Eds.). (1999) Reducing the Odds: Preventing Perinatal Transmission of HIV in the United States. Washington: National Academy Press. http://www.nap.edu/books/0309062861/html/index.html

⁴U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. Healthy People 2010 (Conference Edition, in Two Volumes.) Washington, DC: January 2000, chapter 13.

⁵Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Fact Sheet "Questions and Answers: HIV is the Cause of AIDS" available online at http://www.cdc.gov/hiv/pubs/cause.htm

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Definition

Human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) is a virus that is passed among people through bodily fluids such as blood or breast milk. HIV causes acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS).⁵

Acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS) is a syndrome that people with HIV usually develop which is characterized by a weakened immune system.

Cases reported here are for those children and adolescents newly diagnosed with AIDS.

For a more detailed definition, please see the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention article "AIDS Surveillance in the United States" at: http://www.cdc.gov/hiv/software/apids/surveil.pdf

Data Source

National Center for Health Statistics. Health, United States, 2004 with Chartbook in the Health of Americans. Hyattsville, Maryland: 2004. Table 52. http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/hus/hus04trend.pdf#topic

National Center for Health Statistics. Health, United States, 2003 with Chartbook in the Health of Americans. Hyattsville, Maryland: 2003. Table 53. http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/hus/hus03.pdf

Raw Data Source

Center for Disease Control and Prevention. HIV/AIDS Surveillance
http://www.cdc.gov/hiv/stats/hasrlink.htm

Approximate Date of Next Update

Winter 2005

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