AZT REGIMEN, REGULAR TREATMENT MAKING A DIFFERENCE.

Byline: Martha Irvine Associated Press 

No one knows whether Lisa O'Connor's baby will be born with the AIDS virus.

More than three years ago, the baby - whose HIV-positive mother is due to give birth to her in June - would have had about a 1-in-4 chance of contracting the virus.

Now, in some U.S. regions, that statistic has dropped to 1-in-20, and perhaps lower, mostly due to use of the drug AZT. And an increasing number of women with the AIDS virus are choosing to have children.

``We're going for our dreams,'' said O'Connor, who is married to Pete Iglesias and has already named her unborn daughter Marisa Tila Iglesias.

O'Connor, who lives in Oakland, has been HIV-positive for nearly nine years. She thinks she contracted the virus from a boyfriend who died of AIDS, although she also is a recovering drug addict.

San Francisco General, where the baby will be born, and the University of California, San Francisco, medical centers - the two main hospitals in the city where HIV-positive mothers are treated - have had no cases of HIV transmission to newborns since April 1995, doctors say.

And city health records for 1995 and 1996 show no new pediatric AIDS cases from birth to age 12.

``People are just stunned when they hear the statistics,'' said Susan Haikalis, director of client services at the San Francisco-based AIDS Foundation. ``It's unusual for a city this size.''

Dr. Karen Beckerman, who works regularly with HIV-infected mothers, is cautious but optimistic.

``It's unlikely that we'll never see an infected baby again,'' says Beckerman, a physician with the Bay Area Perinatal AIDS Center. ``But this is a change in the epidemic that deserves to be highlighted.''

Nationwide, AZT has been given regularly during pregnancy since a successful 1994 clinical trial concluded.

HIV-positive pregnant women begin taking AZT after their first trimester. AZT is then given intravenously during labor. And the infant receives AZT syrup for six weeks after birth.

The results have been quickly noted.

In North Carolina, for example, doctors say transmission rates have dropped from 20 percent to about 5 percent in the past two years. In New York City, public health officials recorded 22 cases of HIV-infected newborns last year, compared with 82 in 1995 and 111 in 1994.

O'Connor, 34, said the improved statistics convinced her that having a child was worth the risk.

``For me, it was too scary until recently,'' she said.

After she tested positive for the virus, she hardly even expected to be alive today, let alone pregnant. Recent tests also have found no sign of HIV in her system, though doctors say that doesn't mean she's cured.

Now an AIDS educator and counselor for fellow recovering drug addicts, O'Connor runs off drug names and medical terminology almost with the ease of a doctor.

However, some HIV-positive women don't even know they carry the virus or understand the benefit of the treatment.

In Los Angeles, for example, the only babies born with HIV belonged to mothers who either declined AZT treatment or were not offered testing, despite a state law that requires AIDS testing and counseling be offered to all pregnant women.

``There's still a problem in that there's a lack of knowledge among even clinical people in practice,'' said Dr. Yvonne Bryson, a professor of pediatrics at UCLA and director of the Los Angeles Consortium for Pediatric AIDS.

Experts estimate that about 6,700 HIV-positive women give birth each year. If all of those mothers got AZT and were treated by doctors trained in the latest AIDS prevention techniques, only about 500 of those babies would be born HIV positive, the expert said.

HIV-positive women don't always give birth to infected babies, however, even if they don't take AZT. Last year, there were 678 reported cases in the United States of infected newborns, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Internationally, the numbers are grim.

As many as 400,000 newborns tested positive last year worldwide - many in poorer countries, according to the World Health Organization.

Pediatric AIDS experts will meet in Washington this week to discuss ways to further reduce those numbers.

While she is wary of new drug-resistant HIV strains, Bryson can envision U.S. transmission rates to newborns dropping to 1-in-50.

Some say it could fall even lower.

In the meantime, O'Connor is preparing her daughter's nursery. She says staying positive has helped keep her healthy.

``Maybe I will be able to be one of those moms who picks their kid up from high school,'' she says. ``That would be wonderful.''