Researchers Identify a Simple Inexpensive Drug Regimen which is Highly Effective in Preventing HIV in Infants of Mothers with the Disease

JUL-13-1999 13:09 OD/NIAID/NIH 3014964409 P.01/04
NIH NEWS RELEASE
NATIONAL INSTITUTES OF HEALTH National Institute of Allergy
and Infectious Diseases
FOR RELEASE Laurie K. Doepel
Wednesday, July 14,1999 [email protected]
12:00 p.m. Eastern Time Leslie Fink
[email protected]
[phone]
Researchers Identify a Simple, Inexpensive Drug Regimen Which is Highly Effective in
Preventing HIV In Infants of Mothers with the Disease
A joint Uganda-U.S. study has found a highly effective and safe drug regimen for
preventing transmission of HIV from an infected mother to her newborn which is less expensive
and more practical than any other examined to date. Interim results from the study, sponsored
by the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), demonstrate that a single
oral dose of the antiretroviral drug nevirapine (NVP) given to an HIV-infected woman in labor
and another to her baby within three days of birth reduce the transmission rate by at least half
compared to a similar short course of AZT. If implemented widely in developing countries, this
intervention potentially could prevent some 300,000 to 400,000 newborns per year from
beginning life infected with HIV.
"This study represents the most promising advance to date toward NIAID's goal of
finding strategies that can be used worldwide to prevent the spread of HIV from HIV-infected
mothers to their infants," says NIAID Director Anthony S. Fauci, M.D.
in an announcement from Kampala this morning, Ugandan officials hailed the finding.
"This research provides real hope that we may be able to protect many of Africa's next
generation from the ravages of AIDS," says Crispus Kiyonga, M.B.Ch.B., Uganda's Minister of
Health. "We commend the collaborative effort of our country's scientists, led by Professor
Francis Mmiro from Makerere University Faculty of Medicine, and their U.S. colleagues, led by

Dr. Brooks Jackson from The Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine."
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