Good news for breast-feeding moms
CHICAGO: Young breast-feeding African mothers at risk of getting HIV can breathe a sigh of relief – pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) has minimal drug exposure for their babies.
This is according to a study led by Dr Kenneth Mugwanya from the University of Washington, which was conducted in Kenya and Uganda, enrolling 50 HIV-uninfected mother-infant pairs between one to 24 weeks post-partum.
Mugwanya reported on the study on Tuesday at the biennial HIV Research for Prevention conference (HIVR4P 2016) under way this week in Chicago, US.
PrEP is the use of antiretroviral medication to prevent people from acquiring HIV – particularly people at high risk of getting HIV – the most common combination being tenofovir and emtricitabine. As PrEP becomes more widely used in heterosexual relationships, the study – published in the journal PLOS Medicine – looked into its safety in infants who are breast-fed by women taking PrEP.
The 10-day into whether the drugs were excreted into breast milk and then absorbed by the nursing infant in clinically significant concentrations when used as PrEP by lactating women. The PreP was given to the women aged from 22 to 28 directly and daily. The highest- and l o we s t - l e v e l samples of maternal blood and breast milk were taken on day seven and 10, and a single infant blood sample on day seven.
In infant blood, tenofovir was unquantifiable in 46/49 samples (94 percent) but emtricitabine was detectable in 47/49 (96 percent), and even then, Mugwanya said the exposure of emtricitabine was low compared to the doses used for infant HIV treatment and there were no safety concerns.
He said there were also no serious adverse side-effects noted during the follow-up.
Mugwanya added: “The data should be reassuring to young women in sub-Saharan Africa who spend a significant amount of time of their lives at risk of getting HIV or pregnant. It’s also encouraging because the women’s attendance rate to get their doses was really high.”
The baby’s exposure to the HIV drug was low