International recommendations on antiretroviral drugs for treatment of HIV-infected women and prevention of mother-to-child HIV transmission in resource-limited settings: 2006 update

Perinatal Transmission of HIV in Women Receiving Antiretroviral Prophylaxis/Therapy during Pregnancy with Zidovudine, Lamivudine, and Nevirapine: Experience at Tertiary Care Center in India

“…10 Townsend et al observed the HIV transmission rate to be only 0.8% among women on combination ART at least for 14 days. Overall 5 out of 33 or 15% neonates weighed less than 2.5 Kg (low birth weight) in the present study which was similar to previous rate of 14.6% reported by Cooper et al 13 The ARV protocol offered at our institute has been followed since 2006 when WHO reported this to be most efficacious among the abbreviated regimens suggested for developing countries with MTCT rate of 4% or less reported by Dao et al 14 World Health Organization guidelines 2006 recommended that women who are not eligible for triple drug ART for their own disease should receive a combination prophylaxis antiretroviral regimen, preferably AZT from 28 weeks of gestation; AZT, 3TC and a single dose NVP during delivery; and AZT and 3TC for 7 days (tail) after delivery to reduce the development of NVP resistance. Newborn infants should receive a single dose of NVP and 1 to 4 weeks of AZT depending on the duration of treatment received by the mother.…”

The spread, treatment, and prevention of HIV-1: evolution of a global pandemic

“…The plausibility of this approach is based on the successful use of antiretroviral therapy to prevent mother-to-child transmission (ref. 104 and discussed in detail below) and from a series of animal experiments (130). It has been shown that daily s.c. administration of a combination of the antiviral agents tenofovir and emtricitabine to rhesus macaques provided complete protection from 14 weekly exposures to simian HIV (SHIV), and an oral combination of these agents provided partial protection (130).…”

Elimination of paediatric HIV in KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa: large-scale assessment of interventions for the prevention of mother-to-child transmission

“…because they were tested for HIV late in their pregnancies, many of the HIVinfected women did not receive a CD4+ cell result during their pregnancies; one third of the women reporting CD4+ cell counts of < 200 cells per mm 3 had not started lifelong antiretroviral treatment. KwaZulu-Natal's Department of Health has already responded to these findings in an effort to improve service delivery.…”

“…1 When combinations of antiretroviral drugs are given to HIV-positive women, either as lifelong treatment or as prophylaxis to prevent mother-to-child transmission of HIV, the rate of HIV transmission from mothers to non-breastfed infants can be reduced to < 1%. 2,3 In breastfeeding communities, the additional postnatal transmission can similarly be reduced to < 1% when viral load is effectively suppressed. 4 The possibility of reducing the prevalences of HIV infection among HIV-exposed infants to such exceptionally low levels has inspired the belief that the elimination of HIV infection in infants is attainable.…”