CHICAGO: A small study of African infants infected with HIV found that treating them with powerful drugs within the first hours and days of birth helped preserve their immune systems, improving their chances of better long-term health, U.S. researchers said on Wednesday.
The study, published in the journal Science Translational Medicine, builds on discoveries of infants whose HIV was thought to have been cured after receiving antiretroviral therapy within weeks of birth. The first such case involved a Mississippi infant born in 2010 who was treated within 30 hours of birth and was able to control her virus for several months after treatment was stopped.
The researchers reported results of the first 10 infants who were given ART within hours and days of birth, 10 infected infants who began treatment four months after birth and compared those with 54 infants without HIV.The earliest-treated infants showed a much smaller viral reservoir – the pool of virus that persists through life even during treatment – than the second infant group after 96 weeks, researchers reported.
Current World Health Organization guidelines recommend infected newborns receive ART within weeks of birth to suppress the virus, which can otherwise quickly lead to rapid and fatal immune deficiency.
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