All children born to HIV+ mothers now test negative

WHEN THE INFANTS WERE SIX WEEKS OLD, THEY UNDERWENT DNAPCR TESTS, THEN A FINAL ANTIBODY TEST AT 18 MONTHS

All 67 children born to HIV-positive women from May 2015 to May 2017 have been declared free of the infection, said officials from JJ Hospital, Maharashtra’s largest medical facility.

Responding to a right to information (RTI ) query, doctors said repeated testings revealed that the children were HIV-negative.

They tested infants who were younger than 18 months, and who had been exposed to HIV-positive mothers. When the infants were six weeks old, they underwent DNA-PCR tests. They underwent a final antibody test at 18 months.

The transmission of HIV from a woman to her child during pregnancy, labour, delivery or breastfeeding is called mother-to-child transmission. In the absence of any intervention, transmission rates range from 15% to 45%. This rate can be reduced to less than 5% with effective interventions during pregnancy, labour, delivery and breastfeeding.

“Credit goes to our doctors and the revamped treatment regime, given by the National AIDS Control Organisation (NACO) in 2014. We achieved excellent results owing to a combination of three drugs — Tenofovir, Lamivudine and Efavirenz (TLE),” said Dr TP Lahane, dean of JJ Hospital. NACO had recognised it as a centre of excellence, owing to its Prevention of Mother-to-Child Transmission HIV programme.

For decades, doctors would prescribe a single-dose tablet (Nevarapine) to pregnant women.Though the tablets lowered the transmission rates, they still remained significantly higher than the international average. Drug resistance among women was another major issue, said doctors. In 2014, NACO adopted the World Health Organisation’s B+ programme, which gave the three drugs to hospitals for free.

Chetan Kothari, who filed the RTI, said the treatment regimen needs to be strictly followed in all hospitals to eliminate mother-tochild transmission of HIV.

“Small counties such as Cuba have achieved this. However, WHO’s 2015 report states India has managed to get only 38% of HIV-infected pregnant woman on the three-drug treatment. Since the drugs are provided for free, there should be no difficulty in achieving 100% results,” he said.