Treatment of HIV-infected neonates suppresses virus

Some babies appear free of infection Newborns diagnosed with human immunodeficiency virus and then treated with combination antiretrovirals within 48 hours of birth can achieve undetectable viral loads – so low that testing may show the children as HIV negative, researchers reported here. Of 30 babies born in one hospital in South Africa, 10 achieved undetectable viral loads within a year of birth, reported Louise Kuhn, PhD, of Columbia University in New York City. Of those 10 babies, three now show no evidence of infection, even when tested with polymerase chain reaction (PCR) methods, Kuhn reported at the annual Conference on Retroviruses and Opportunistic Infections. “These babies still have HIV infection,” she told MedPage Today. “They remain on treatment.” She and colleagues recruited HIV-infected neonates at Rahima Moosa Mother and Child Hospital in Johannesburg. “We identified these HIV-infected neonates at birth and we attempted to start them on treatment within 48 hours,” Kuhn said. “We then followed...