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Maternal or Infant Antiretroviral Drugs to Reduce HIV-1 Transmission
Journal article   Open access   Peer reviewed

Maternal or Infant Antiretroviral Drugs to Reduce HIV-1 Transmission

Charles S. Chasela, Michael G. Hudgens, Denise J. Jamieson, Dumbani Kayira, Mina C. Hosseinipour, Athena P. Kourtis, Francis Martinson, Gerald Tegha, Rodney J. Knight, Yusuf I. Ahmed, …
The New England journal of medicine, Vol.362(24), pp.2271-2281
06/17/2010
DOI: 10.1056/NEJMoa0911486
PMCID: PMC3440865
PMID: 20554982
url
https://doi.org/10.1056/NEJMoa0911486View
Published (Version of record) Open Access

Abstract

Background We evaluated the efficacy of a maternal triple-drug antiretroviral regimen or infant nevirapine prophylaxis for 28 weeks during breast-feeding to reduce postnatal transmission of human immunodeficiency virus type 1 (HIV-1) in Malawi. Methods We randomly assigned 2369 HIV-1-positive, breast-feeding mothers with a CD4+ lymphocyte count of at least 250 cells per cubic millimeter and their infants to receive a maternal antiretroviral regimen, infant nevirapine, or no extended postnatal antiretroviral regimen (control group). All mothers and infants received perinatal prophylaxis with single-dose nevirapine and 1 week of zidovudine plus lamivudine. We used the Kaplan-Meier method to estimate the cumulative risk of HIV-1 transmission or death by 28 weeks among infants who were HIV-1-negative 2 weeks after birth. Rates were compared with the use of the log-rank test. Results Among mother-infant pairs, 5.0% of infants were HIV-1-positive at 2 weeks of life. The estimated risk of HIV-1 transmission between 2 and 28 weeks was higher in the control group (5.7%) than in either the maternal-regimen group (2.9%, P = 0.009) or the infant-regimen group (1.7%, P<0.001). The estimated risk of infant HIV-1 infection or death between 2 and 28 weeks was 7.0% in the control group, 4.1% in the maternal-regimen group (P = 0.02), and 2.6% in the infant-regimen group (P<0.001). The proportion of women with neutropenia was higher among those receiving the antiretroviral regimen (6.2%) than among those in either the nevirapine group (2.6%) or the control group (2.3%). Among infants receiving nevirapine, 1.9% had a hypersensitivity reaction. Conclusions The use of either a maternal antiretroviral regimen or infant nevirapine for 28 weeks was effective in reducing HIV-1 transmission during breast-feeding. (ClinicalTrials.gov number, NCT00164736.)
General & Internal Medicine Life Sciences & Biomedicine Medicine, General & Internal Science & Technology

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