The chief medical officer, Sir Liam Donaldson, revealed last week in his public health report for 2003 that a quarter of pregnancies in HIV-positive women in London and around 13 per cent across England were still not being tested for HIV.
Despite the national rollout of recommended tests in 1999, five per cent of exposed babies were born infected with HIV in 2002, rising to between five and 10 per cent in London.
Although Sir Liam welcomed the falling numbers of those babies that were diagnosed with HIV, he said it was still a "tragedy that any were occurring at all".
Jo Robinson, senior public health promotion specialist for the Terrence Higgins Trust, said the tests were "hidden away" with other antenatal tests, leaving women to opt out of taking them by ticking a box.
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