Panafrican News Agency - February 3, 1999
If confirmed, the preliminary findings from research conducted in South Africa, Tanzania and Uganda could bring a great relief in sub-Saharan Africa where over half a million babies are infected by the AIDS-causing virus every year.
The research, presented Monday at the Sixth conference on retrovirus in Chicago, analysed mother-to-child (prenatal or vertical) transmission among 1,357 out of 1,792 participants in the trial by the Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS.
The trial conducted in five urban settings evaluated three regimens using zidovun (ZDV or AZT) and lamivudine (3TC). Transmission rates were measured six weeks after birth and the mothers will be followed for 18 months.
UNAIDS said the researchers were still analysing data because HIV can be transmitted to the infants through breastfeeding, the dominant infant feed in sub-Saharan Africa.
A news release announcing the breakthrough quoted Dr Peter Piot, the UNAIDS executive director, as saying: "Now we may be able to help women protect their babies, even if they do not come to a hospital or clinic until very late in pregnancy."
The study discovered that among women who only received an interpartum regimen, with ZDV and 3TC taken during labour and delivery, transmission was not at all reduced.
On her part, the UNAIDS director of policy, strategy and research, Dr Awa-Marie Coll-Seck, said: "We hope that as more data are gathered, more public health officials and donors will see the value of investing in mother-to-child transmission programmes in the countries hardest-hit by the AIDS epidemic."
The manager of the UNAIDS trial, Dr Joseph Saba, noted that "as the final results come from this and other mother-to-child transmission studies, public health officials will have more choices available, especially as more information about the dynamics of transmission through breastfeeding emerges."
It is estimated that 600,000 babies get infected with HIV every year, one third of them through breastfeeding, which can be eliminated if the mother uses alternative methods of feeding the baby.
However, the UNAIDS release says, the risk of infants in developing countries dying if not breastfed "could be even greater than the risk of transmitting HIV infection through breast milk."
In addition, women who use such methods could be ostracisized once their HIV status is exposed to others who observe that they were avoiding breastfeeding. For these reasons, UNAIDS insisted the need "to find prevention methods that are effective for breastfeeding infants."
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