Een zuigeling met AIDS

– A four-month-old girl was hospitalized with pneumococcal sepsis from which she recovered. Subsequently she developed various other infectious diseases, including chronic diarrhoea caused by Cryptosporidium. After a period with neurological symptoms, later sagittal sinus thrombosis and cerebral atrophy, she died at age 13 months. It was found that the child suffered from AIDS. The mother was seropositive and the virus had probably been transmitted via the placenta.

Rapid recognition of infants and young children with AIDS is necessary, for in the near future more cases of this disease will occur. Antiviral treatment may bring about improvement in children as well.