Early HIV treatment lowers risk for babies
Sooner is better when it comes to treating infants born with HIV, the AIDS virus, researchers reported yesterday.
A South African study of 377 babies found that giving newborns drug therapy right away, and not waiting until conventional tests showed a higher risk of becoming ill, cut the death rate by 76 percent.
When doctors withheld therapy until there were symptoms of AIDS, or until immune system cells called CD4 T-cells dropped to low levels, the death rate was 16 percent, the researchers reported in the New England Journal of Medicine.
But among babies that began receiving treatment right away, typically around 7 weeks of age, only 4 percent died after about 40 weeks of care.
The leader of the study, Dr. Avy Violari of the University of Witwatersrand in Johannesburg, said the results have already prompted officials in the United States, Europe, and the World Health Organization this year to recommend immediate treatment for infected babies.
Before then, doctors were advised to take an individual approach to care for infants, who are infected by their mothers during birth or while nursing.
"This was the landmark trial," Violari said in a telephone interview.
More than one-third of the deaths occurred at home, before caregivers realized something was wrong. 