Pregnancy screening, 2019

Pregnancy screening 2019

Screening of pregnant women, 2019

In 2019, a total of 67,994 blood type analyses were performed in pregnant women. Among these women, 67,975 (99.9%) were tested for hepatitis B (HBV), 67,824 (99.7%) for HIV and 67,800 (99.7%) for syphilis.

Pregnant women with hepatitis B

Among 67,975 tested pregnant women, a total of 174 (0.25%) were HBsAg positives (hepatitis B surface antigen), which is at par with the level observed in previous years. A positive HBsAg indicates an acute or chronic hepatitis B virus infection.

Among these, 71 (41%) women tested positive to HBsAg for the first time in 2019. The remaining 103 women (59%) had already tested HBsAg positive at previous testing sessions.

The Department of Infectious Disease Epidemiology and Prevention at the SSI sends out reminders to doctors for registration of hepatitis B if no current or previous notification has been made.

Therefore, all cases were registered in the statutory national notification system in 2019.

HBeAg, a marker for disease activity associated with an increased risk of intrauterine and perinatal mother-to-child transmission, was detected in 19 (11%) of the women.

As in previous years, the majority of HBeAg-positive women were from South-East Asia, Table 1.

 

HIV-positive pregnant women

Among the 67,824 pregnant women who were tested for HIV, 35 (0.05%) tested positive.

A total of four women had newly detected HIV and 31 were known HIV positives.

All newly detected HIV-positive pregnant women were notified via the statutory national HIV notification system.

Pregnant women with syphilis

Among the 67,800 pregnant women who were screened for syphilis in 2019, 101 tested positive. Confirmatory serological tests were performed in 98 of the women (97%). The confirmatory test makes it possible to identify both the false positives/previously infected cases and the pregnant women who currently have syphilis. The majority of the 98 women were false positives or had antibodies from previous syphilis. Current syphilis was established in 11 of these cases, corresponding to 0.02% of all the screened pregnant women.

Among the 11 positives, six were of Danish origin.

Only six of the 11 women were notified via the statutory national syphilis notification system.

Three women did not have the confirmatory test performed despite requests from the SSI to do so.

Two cases of congenital syphilis were notified in 2019. Both mothers had been detected in the pregnancy screening, but had not received sufficient treatment. To ensure patient anonymity, the exact circumstances relating to these cases are not described.

This report is also described in EPI-NEWS 21-22/20.