Early treatment of HIV-infected infants with ART significantly reduces mortality

Source: AIDSMAP
Theo Smart, Wednesday, July 25, 2007

Treating HIV-infected infants with antiretroviral therapy (ART) as early as possible, within the first six to 12 weeks of life — rather than waiting until they show signs of immunological or clinical deterioration — dramatically decreases their risk of early death, according to findings from the Children with HIV Early Antiretroviral Therapy (CHER) trial, a South African study presented today at a late-breaker session of the 4th International AIDS Society Conference on HIV Treatment and Pathogenesis in Sydney.

“Starting ART before 12 weeks of age reduces early mortality by 75%,” said Dr Avy Violari of the University of the Witwatersrand in Johannesburg, who, along with Dr Marc Cotton from Cape Town, led the study.

After only 32 weeks of follow-up, the difference between early and deferred treatment was so profound that the study’s Data and Safety Monitoring Board (DSMB) called for the deferred ART arm of the study to be terminated, and urged that infants who weren’t already on treatment “should be urgently recalled and assessed for ART.”

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