Nevirapine

A DURBAN hospital has cut the transmission of HIV from pregnant mothers to their babies to less than 3% with dual therapy. The study started with all 2 624 pregnant women who attended McCord's antenatal clinic during the 18 months from March 2004 to August 2005.

Members of Parliaments health committee yesterday heaped praise on health department officials for a detailed presentation of new government policy for stopping mother to child transmission of HIV. They then engaged in a lively debate about the intricacies of the plans. The mood stood in stark contrast to last weeks meeting, which saw committee chairman James Ngculu reprimanding Health Minister Manto Tshabalala-Msimang for delegating the job to an apparently ill-prepared official, and ordering her to return better prepared. Yesterday Ngculu joined African National Congress and opposition parties in complimenting the health departments chief director for HIV/AIDS, Nomonde Xundu, for her thorough presentation on the subject.

After years of stalling and much criticism from the HIV/AIDS sector, the Policy Committee of the National Health Council on Friday finally adopted new guidelines for the prevention of mother to child transmission (PMTCT).

The Southern African HIV Clinicians Society has added its voice to the growing criticism of the health department's failure to get its house in order on the prevention of mother to children transmission (PMTCT) programme.

The objective of this study was to examine missed opportunities for participation in a prevention of mother-to-child transmission (PMTCT) programme in three sites in South Africa. A rapid anthropological assessment was used to collect in-depth data from 58 HIV-positive women who were enrolled in a larger cohort study to assess mother-to-child HIV transmission. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with the women in order to gain an understanding of their experiences of antenatal care and to identify missed opportunities for participation in PMTCT.

The Department of Health is stalling the introduction of treatment that can prevent more than 90% of pregnant HIV-positive women from passing the virus to their babies. Currently, as many as 30 000 infants in one province alone are being infected with HIV by their mothers each year.

mothers2mothers (m2m) is a peer support program that aims to provide education and psychosocial support to HIV-positive pregnant women and new mothers, help women access existing health care services to prevent mother-to-child transmission of HIV (PMTCT), and follow up with mothers and babies to ensure they receive appropriate medical care after delivery. While there has been much interest in innovative psychosocial support programs that complement PMTCT clinical services, only a few such programs exist, and there is very little data about their effectiveness. Although m2m is a well known program with anecdotal accounts of successfully supporting HIV-positive women, the program had yet to undergo an external evaluation. The Horizons Program of Population Council, in collaboration with Health Systems Trust, completed the first evaluation of m2m as part of its introduction in KwaZulu-Natal Province, South Africa.

The South African Public Sector strike has meant that many public sector patients with HIV may or already have had their treatment interrupted. This applies to antiretrovirals, as well as opportunistic illness treatment.

South Africa's Medicines Control Council got a major slapdown in the Pretoria High Court when a judge ordered that a nevirapine trial it was stalling be allowed to go ahead immediately.

Women can take the anti-AIDS drug nevirapine to protect their unborn children without endangering their ability to undergo life-saving antiretroviral treatment later on, a new study has found.