HEALTH : At Least 27 Babies, 4 Mothers Contract AIDS in Soviet Hospital
At least 27 babies at a Soviet hospital were infected with AIDS, apparently after injections with tainted syringes, and four of their mothers became infected after breast-feeding, official reports said today.
The reports said if the mothers caught the disease by nursing, as doctors believe, it will be the first time AIDS transmission by breast-feeding has been documented.
Officials blamed the infant infections on nurses re-using contaminated needles, possibly to cover up the black-market sale of surplus needles to drug addicts, the official news agency Novosti and the newspaper Trud said.
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