Just got this press release.

Ruth Scuderi
Westfield, MA
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New Drug Protects Newborns from AIDS

.c The Associated Press

 By LAURAN NEERGAARD

WASHINGTON (AP) - Scientists working in Uganda have discovered a dramatically
more effective way to prevent pregnant women from spreading the AIDS virus to
their babies: a drug treatment that costs just $4 per mother and could save
up to 1,000 newborns a day.

The drug nevirapine already is widely sold around the world to treat AIDS.
But the new study found it is 47 percent more effective than the therapy now
recommended in developing countries for preventing mother-to-baby
transmission of the AIDS virus.

The discovery, announced Wednesday by U.S. scientists, could finally boost
AIDS prevention among the world's poorest countries because for the first
time the nations most afflicted by the AIDS epidemic could afford to buy
babies some protection.

``You're talking about the possibility of preventing infection in up to 1,000
babies per day for a cost that is really very minor,'' said Dr. Anthony Fauci
of the U.S. National Institutes of Health, which funded the research. ``Now
all of a sudden it falls, at least in some countries, within the realm of
affordability.''

``This research provides real hope that we may be able to protect many of
Africa's next generation from the ravages of AIDS,'' said Uganda's health
minister, Crispus Kiyonga, in a statement.

One of the greatest successes in the fight against AIDS is using the drug AZT
to lower pregnant women's chances of spreading the deadly virus to their
newborns. In the United States and other wealthy countries, infected mothers
typically receive five months of AZT, a therapy that cuts in half their
babies' risk of infection.

But that treatment can cost more than $1,000, far beyond what developing
countries can afford.

Last year, scientists discovered that giving far fewer AZT doses, starting
during labor, could protect newborns, although not as effectively as the
treatment Americans get. But even that ``short-course AZT therapy'' was too
expensive for many countries.

Nevirapine is a cheaper AIDS drug. Although it works against the same viral
target as AZT, it stays in the body for a longer time, crosses the placenta
and even gets into breast milk.

U.S. scientists, working with doctors in Uganda, studied 618 mothers. Half
got short-course AZT. The other half got a single dose of nevirapine during
labor, and their babies got a single dose within three days of birth.

The scientists hoped nevirapine would prove as good as AZT - but to their
surprise, it worked far better. Just 13.1 percent of nevirapine-treated
infants became infected with HIV, vs. 25.1 percent of AZT-treated babies.

The United Nations estimates that 1,800 HIV-infected babies are born daily in
developing countries. In parts of sub-Saharan Africa, the region hardest-hit
by AIDS, up to 30 percent of pregnant women are infected.

Widespread use of nevirapine could prevent between 300,000 and 400,000 babies
a year from contracting HIV at birth, the NIH said.

The new study has implications for American women, too: If a woman goes into
labor without having had prenatal AZT treatment, doctors could consider
giving her nevirapine, Fauci said.

In addition, a study under way of U.S. and European women will attempt to
determine whether adding nevirapine to the longer and more expensive AZT
therapy that they now take also would work better.

Nevirapine, sold in the United States under the brand name Viramune, appeared
safe for infants. But scientists will follow the babies until they're 18
months old, both to look for possible long-term side effects - and to see
whether nevirapine also could protect against HIV in breast milk. Babies born
healthy still can become infected through breast-feeding, something no drug
so far has prevented. But early data are ``highly suggestive'' that
nevirapine might prove beneficial in breast milk, Fauci said.

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