Study underscores need to expand programs striving for global pediatric AIDS control
In the ongoing battle to prevent mother-to-child transmission of human immunodeficiency virus (HIV), not all weapons are being used: Only about half of HIV-exposed infants in some African countries received a minimal dose of the prevention drug nevirapine, say researchers at the University of Alabama at Birmingham.
In a July 21, 2010 issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association, the researchers report that only 51 percent of HIV-exposed infants received the minimal regimen of nevirapine to protect them. As for women who had been prescribed nevirapine before birth, the study found that many had no sign of the prevention drug in their umbilical cord samples - which limits mother-to-child HIV prevention efforts, says Elizabeth Stringer, M.D., UAB associate professor of obstetrics and gynecology and the lead author of the study in the JAMA HIV/AIDS theme issue.
"What this study shows us is that there are programmatic failures and common problems that occur along the path to mother-to-child transmission prevention," including HIV testing inadequacies and patients not taking their medications, says Stringer, who treats patients and conducts research full-time at the UAB-affiliated Center for Infectious Disease Research in Zambia along with her husband, UAB's Jeffrey Stringer, M.D., who directs the Zambian center. Both are members of UAB's Center for AIDS Research.
"We know that true mother-to-child transmission prevention begins with HIV testing, with finding those who are infected and getting them into a program helps them adhere to the single-dose nevirapine and other care guidelines," Stringer says.