About 60,000 samples are sent annually to the Oulu National Public Health Institute for detailed analysis. Over the past 12 years, over 100 pregnant women have been found to carry the HIV virus in Finland.
Thanks to this effective screening, mothers with HIV can almost completely eradicate the chance of passing the infection on to their unborn babies. As a result, less than one percent of babies have been born with the virus.
The earlier doctors know a woman is HIV positive, the better chance they have of preventing mother-to-baby transmission. Experts say that without treatment, 10-30% of babies born to HIV-positive women would be affected.
However this type of anti-natal care does not come cheap. Preventative drugs alone cost about 10,000 euros annually per patient.
Some two-thirds of people with HIV and Aids live in Africa. The World Health Organisation estimates that some 700,000 children worldwide are born with the virus each year.
Poverty is the biggest problem when it comes to HIV care - the poorest countries in the world cannot afford the type of preventative methods available to Finnish mums-to-be.