Cheaper Drug Prevents HIV in Newborns

Researchers reported at the 14th International AIDS Conference last week that a simple and inexpensive drug given just once after birth could protect many infants from HIV infection. Babies given a single dose of nevirapine within 24 hours after birth were no more likely to become infected with HIV than those given AZT for the first six weeks of life. But while one dose of nevirapine costs 75 cents, a six-week course of AZT costs about $40, said Dr. Glenda Gray, head of the team reporting the study.

Gray said her team was using the new regimen at the Chris Hani Baragwanath Hospital in Soweto. The findings "provide policy makers an alternative" for pregnant women, she said. Gray added that the findings needed to be confirmed in additional studies before the regimen was more widely adopted. Giving nevirapine to a woman during labor and then to her newborn is considered the most feasible way to prevent HIV transmission from an infected mother to her newborn in developing countries, Gray said.

She said her team undertook the study because she and other pediatricians did not know how effective preventive therapy would be if they gave nevirapine only to a newborn and not to the mother. Researchers tested the mothers of 781 infants for evidence of HIV during labor or delivery. Mothers who chose preventive therapy were not included in the study. Of mothers who rejected preventive therapy for themselves, half of their babies received a single dose of nevirapine, the other half received six weeks of AZT.

Researchers found that of the babies who tested negative for HIV at birth, 7.3 percent of those receiving nevirapine became infected, as against 10.7 percent of those receiving AZT. Statistical analysis showed that the difference could be a result of chance. The study found that the single dose of nevirapine protected a breast-fed baby from infection for six weeks. Earlier studies have suggested that most infections transmitted through the breast milk occur in the first six weeks of life. The risk of infection increased if the mother breast-fed and the infant received AZT.

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