New Reccomendations from WHO regarding the prevention and treatment of HIV/AIDS
December 10th, 2009
On November 30th, based on the conclusions and results of some recent studies, the World Health Organization (WHO) issued the new recommendations for HIV/AIDS prevention and treatment, including in the HIV frame the indications on infant and child nutrition.
The complete and revised version of the HIV/AIDS prevention and treatment Guidelines are expected to be issued at the beginning of next year being considered as an update of the recommendations on the antiretroviral therapy (TARV), issued in 2006.The new WHO recommendations especially aim for:
- TARV administration for CD4 values higher than 350/mm3 for all the HIV positive patients, including pregnant women, due to the studies issued I 2006 that show that an early administration of TARV significantly reduces the morbidity and mortality rate among HIV infected people;
- is recommended to eliminate from the regular therapy the Stavudine, which can be substituted by Zidovudina or Tenovir;
- quality improvement of the laboratory improvement that can significantly contribute to improving the efficiency of the ARV treatment.
As for the HIV prevention from mother to child, out of the recommendations issued at the end of November we extract the indication for long term TARV administration to HIV positive pregnant women being at a fertile age, who also needs short time treatment and prophylaxis for preventing the vertical transmission, from mother to child.
For the HIV infected pregnant women, TARV should be administrated the earliest possible during the pregnancy, at the 14th week of pregnancy and should continue after giving birth under the strict supervision of the specialist physician.
As therapy, the options mentions by the new recommendations include AZT, the early start of TARV stimulating the immune system, decreasing the associated infections risk both for the mother and child. It is estimated that reality the new recommendations for the vertical transmission will decrease the rate of HIV vertical transmission under 5%.
Source: Medscape Medical News, "WHO Issues new HIV Recommendations", autor Laurie Barclay, MD (http://www.medscape.com/welcome/news)The full version of the WHO new recommendations on HIV/AIDS prevention and transmission is available at http://www.who.int/hiv/en/http://www.who.int/hiv/en/
