Sat Nov 27, 2004 10:40 AM ET
By Fayen Wong
SINGAPORE (Reuters) - Singapore, facing a rise in AIDS cases, is considering making it compulsory for pregnant women to be screened for HIV/AIDS, an official said on Saturday.
"If all mothers had been tested for HIV, and treatment started for HIV positive mothers, the risk of the baby having AIDS would be reduced from 25 percent to 2 percent," said Balaji Sadasivan, senior minister of state for health, at the fourth Singapore AIDS Conference.
Although Singapore has one of the lowest levels of HIV infection in Asia, the number of new infections hit a record high with 257 cases reported in the first 10 months of this year, more than the 242 new cases reported for all of 2003.
