Share & more
A study published in the New England Journal of Medicine on Thursday suggests that combinations of anti-AIDS drugs given to HIV-positive adults can also be effective in newborn babies.
The findings are expected to help guide HIV treatment in children, especially in the developing world, home to an estimated 90 percent of some 2,000 HIV-positive babies born globally each day.
The study found that babies who started the multi-drug treatment before they were three months old were twice as likely to have lower levels of the AIDS virus in their blood after nearly four years, compared to babies who began later.
According to Reuters, Katherine Luzuriaga of the University of Massachusetts Medical School in Worcester, US, said the study "provide increasing evidence that several regimens of antiretroviral therapy are safe, effective, and well tolerated during years of administration when started in infancy."
This article was produced by IRIN News while it was part of the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs. Please send queries on copyright or liability to the UN. For more information: https://shop.un.org/rights-permissions
