Pregnant With HIV May Now Be Safe

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Mother to child transmission of HIV is one of the biggest reasons of of HIV in children. In 2009 the record showed death of 3,70,000 children across the world due to HIV and 2010 witnessed 15% increase in the number. Usually HIV is detected in pregnant women only at the time of labour, which makes it a bit difficult to stop the the mother to child transmission of HIV. In such a case usually the baby is treated soon after birth with HIV drug zidovudine (ZDV), to prevent the child from being infected. This however, has not been quite successful in bring down the number of infant death due to HIV.

A study undertaken in hospitals in Brazil, South Africa, Argentina and US have now confirmed that additional dose of two to three drugs can check the mother to child HIV transmission by 50%. "To reduce mother-to-child HIV transmission, it's best to begin antiretroviral treatment during pregnancy. However, when treatment during pregnancy isn't possible, our results show that adding one or two drugs to the current regimen provides another important means to reduce the chance for mother-to-child HIV transmission," said Heather Watts, M.D., a medical officer in NICHD's Pediatric, Adolescent and Maternal AIDS Branch, and an author of the study.

To confirm the finding that claims that two or three additional drug can prevent mother-to-child transmission of HIV, 19 participants experimented on 1,648 children who were born to HIV infected mothers. The infants were put in three groups -

Group 1 – This group received six weeks of therapy with zidovudine (ZDV).

Group 2 – Received six weeks of therapy with ZDZ along with three doses of nevirapine.

Group 3 – Received six weeks of therapy of ZDZ along with two doses of nelfinavir.

The result showed that the group which received three additional doses along with the ZDZ reduced mother to child HIV transmission by 50%.

"Our results showed conclusively that the two and three drug regimens are superior to the standard treatment with zidovudine," said study chair Karin Nielsen-Saines, M.D., clinical professor of pediatrics in the Division of Infectious Diseases.