Prevention of mother-child transmission programs work but infants need checking for drug resistance

Genetic mutations that lead to antiretroviral (the drugs used to treat HIV/AIDS) resistance in HIV-infected infants may develop as a result of exposure to low doses of maternal antiretroviral drugs via breastfeeding rather than being acquired directly from the mother. This key finding from a study by Clement Zeh from the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Kisumu, Kenya, and colleagues, published in this week's PLoS Medicine, is important as it may impact the choice of drug regimen given to HIV-infected breastfeeding mothers and their infected infants—an effective intervention which has been shown to substantially reduce the overall rate of mother-to-child transmission of the HIV virus.

Read the whole article on Physorg

More from Physorg