HIV Pathogenesis, Treatment and Prevention update-1
Early treatment saves more HIV babies
4th International AIDS Society (IAS) Conference on HIV Pathogenesis, Treatment and Prevention was held from July 22-25 in Sydney, Australia. The conference featured reports on the latest developments in the areas of basic, clinical and prevention science related to HIV/AIDS.The conference received a record number of abstracts. The three-day IAS conference, attended by 5,000 delegates from more than 130 countries, urged governments to allocate 10 percent of HIV funding to research, both medical and operational, to ensure treatment reached those in the world's poorest nations. Dr Tareq Salahuddin, In-charge of Star Health page attended the conference in Sydney. He will report on different issues, research papers and latest update on HIV pathogenesis, treatment and prevention discussed in the conference HIV-infected babies have a greater chance of survival if they receive treatment before they show signs of illness or a weakened immune system, the International AIDS Society (IAS) was told on Tuesday. A study of infants in Cape Town and Soweto in South Africa, which began in 2005, found that 96 percent of infants given immediate drug treatment were still alive two years later, compared with only 84 percent of children given later treatment. The study, by the US National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Disease (NIAID), was so successful that it was cut short by four years so that all children could receive treatment. An estimated 2.3 million children are currently HIV infected, with around 600,000 new HIV infections in children each year. Without treatment half of all babies infected with HIV die before their second birthday. "Children with HIV infection frequently show rapid disease progression within the first year of life due to their developing immune systems and susceptibility to other serious infections," said Dr Elias Zerhouni, director of the US National Institute of Health, in releasing the study at the 4th IAS conference in Sydney this July. "This is the first randomised clinical trial that shows that infants treated before 3 months of age will do better than infants who have their treatment delayed," Zerhouni said in a statement. The study of 337 babies aged 6 to 12 weeks was initially aimed at examining whether early antiretroviral drug therapy over a limited period would delay HIV progression. Doctors had hoped that early treatment would allow a child's immune system to develop and possibly allow the child to stop treatment for a period of time and avoid continuous therapy. Caring for HIV-infected children is complicated by the fact that their immune systems are not fully developed in the first year of life, which makes them especially susceptible to rapid the disease progression and death. The current standard of HIV care in many parts of the world is to treat infants with antiretroviral therapy, but only after they show signs of illness or a weakened immune system. Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF) said children were the "silent victims" of the global AIDS epidemic, with 9 out of 10 child sufferers infected through mother-to-child transmission during pregnancy, childbirth or breastfeeding. MSF said "vertical transmission" of HIV from mother to child had been almost been wiped out in wealthy countries because antiretroviral drug therapy was given to pregnant mothers and babies within a few hours of birth. The mother-to-child transmission rate in wealthy nations was below 1 percent, compared with rates as high as 25 to 45 percent in poorer nations in Africa, said MSF.
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