Even HIV-infected mothers with a strong immune system can gain from an anti-retroviral regimen involving three drugs while breastfeeding. The therapy can help to eliminate HIV transmission to infants through breast milk. Hence, everyday infant nevirapine and three-drug antiretroviral therapy can prevent the trasfer of HIV, reveal scientists.
Secondly, the "perinatal transmission rate" was also low for those who took the therapy forward. At the age of six months, the rates were 0.3 percent, while at one year, the rates were 0.6 percent. As most babies lived through their first year, infant mortality too was extremely low.
The World Health Organisation (WHO) shows that if there is no intervention during pregnancy, labour, delivery or breastfeeding, the HIV transmission rate from infected mother to child can vary between 15-45 percent
The study confirms "the benefits of antiretroviral therapy for every person living with HIV," said Immunologist and Director of National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), a US-based research organisation, Anthony S. Fauci.
The WHO guidelines have suggested that antiretroviral therapy should be given for all pregnant and breastfeeding women who have HIV. The results of tests in sub-Saharan Africa and India are in line with the ongoing Promoting Maternal and Infant Survival Everywhere (PROMISE) study, funded by the National Institutes of Health.
"Maternal antiretroviral therapy safely minimizes the threat of HIV transmission through breast milk while preserving the health advantages of breastfeeding, as the high infant survival in this study underscores," Fauci added.
The therapy has enabled 99 percent of babies to survive their first birthday. In areas that do not have safe drinking water, affected mothers should breastfeed so that their infants are safe from respiratory and diarrheal infections and malnutrition.
The results of the study were presented at the 8th International Workshop on HIV Paediatrics in Durban, South Africa.
