AIDS: Changed drug treatment could protect newborn babies
942 views · Published 22 July 2009 · 0:35 · Indexed 15 October 2026
Channel: United Nations · 2009 · News & Politics
United Nations, New York, 22 July 2009 - Office of the Spokesperson for the Secretary-General. Mother-to-child HIV transmission rates can be dramatically cut with the administration of a cocktail of antiretroviral (ARV) drugs over a longer period of time to pregnant and breastfeeding women, the Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS) announced today. Newborn babies are over 40 per cent less likely to become infected with the virus if HIV-positive pregnant women take a combination of three ARV drugs from the last trimester of pregnancy until six months into breastfeeding, rather than a short course of drugs that ends at delivery, according to a new study led by the World Health Organization (WHO). The study named Kesho Bora, which means a better future in Swahili involved 1,140 women from Burkina Faso, Kenya and South Africa and showed that a significant reduction can be achieved in many pregnant women with a lowered immune cell count.
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