Affordable, effective drug regimen for infants of mothers with HIV.

An affordable, highly effective, and safe drug regimen for prevention of HIV transmission from an infected mother to her newborn is presented in this article. The regimen was found by a joint US-Ugandan study sponsored by the US National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases. The study finds that a single dose of the antiretroviral drug nevirapine (NVP) substantially lowers the cost barrier that keeps many countries from adopting drug strategies for prevention of perinatal HIV transmission. The cost of the NVP regimen, based on average US wholesale prices, is approximately 200 and 70 times cheaper than that of long and short courses, respectively, of AZT. Findings show that the regimen could prevent some 300,000-400,000 newborns per year from beginning life infected with HIV. Moreover, for pregnant women who do not know their HIV status until they begin labor, the NVP regimen provides a last-minute prevention option.