Keeping HIV out of the cradle
For decades, HIV has stalked not just sexually active adults around the world, but also babies living in the world’s poorest countries, hanging a virtual death sentence over nearly half of those born to HIV-positive mothers. That fact has been slowly changing, as scientists engaged in the struggle against HIV and AIDS better understand the routes through which the virus crosses from mother to baby. Scientists have shown that giving the mother antiretroviral drugs will reduce a baby’s chances of contracting HIV during the long months of gestation and the brief trauma of birth. The Harvard School of Public Health AIDS Initiative (HAI) recently gave health workers a major tool to keep HIV from the world’s most vulnerable, with a study that shows that multidrug therapy nearly eliminates mother-to-child transmission during breast-feeding. The study, published in The New England Journal of Medicine in June, was conducted between 2006 and 2008 among 730 HIV-infected...