The COVID-19 Winter Plan, published 23 November, relies on three factors to provide the UK with a “route back to normality”: vaccines, treatments and testing. In addition to PCR testing, lateral flow devices are now being rolled out across England and Wales for the rapid testing of certain occupational groups, community testing and as an alternative to self-isolation following exposure to the virus. How well validated have these tests been? Are they accurate enough for their proposed purposes? And how have they performed to date in mass testing trials?
Documents to download
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Babies and HIV infection (194 KB, PDF)
Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV) infection is spreading in the heterosexual population, with the result that pregnant women are increasingly affected (the number infected in inner London has risen from 1 in 2000 to 1 in 500 in the last two years). Some babies acquire their mother’s infection by the time they are born; there is also evidence that babies may be at risk of infection from breast feeding.
This POSTnote reviews recent scientific evidence on the transmission of HIV from infected mothers to their babies and the implications.
Documents to download
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Babies and HIV infection (194 KB, PDF)
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