| The AIDS epidemic is spreading rapidly among women worldwide, offering increasing opportunities for vertical transmission of HIV. In Brazil, the prevalence of HIV infection among pregnant women is less than 1%. Therefore, the positive predictive value of an HIV EIA test tends to be lower than the more frequent indeterminate Western blot result. Pregnant women receiving antenatal care, from 2000 to 2004, at a public secondary hospital in the city of Presidente Prudente, São Paulo, Brazil, were systematically screened for HIV by means of two distinct EIA tests, in order to determine the prevalence of indeterminate Western blot results among pregnant women showing discordance in both HIV EIA tests and indirect immunofluorescence assay. Confirmatory indirect... |
