HIV Prevention Drug Linked With Birth Defects

An anti-retroviral drug used to prevent the transmission of HIV from mother to child may have small but significant effects on infant development, a new study has claimed.

The findings showed that the developmental effects on the children occur even if the child is born without acquiring HIV infection.

A drug that prevents mother-to-child HIV transmission affects the development of unborn babies.

Children exposed in utero to atazanavir as part of the anti-retroviral regime the mother followed during pregnancy, scored lower in social-emotional and language development tests than those who were not.

The study also found that the effect on social-emotional development was only found in children whose mothers started taking the drug during the second to third trimester of pregnancy but language development of the infants were affected regardless of the trimester in which the mothers took the drugs.

The babies were then subjected to a standard test of development to measure their linguistic faculty and psychosocial abilities.

Atazanavir is a type of drug called a protease inhibitor, which is included in some of the combination ARV regimens used for HIV treatment. Children whose mothers were into antiretroviral regimens that contain atazanavir during pregnancy had lower scores on social-emotional and language development.

Other Bayley III subscales-cognitive, motor (movement), and adaptive behavior-were similar for atazanavir-exposed versus unexposed infants.

Further studies are needed to determine whether these language and social development delays last beyond the age of 1, how atazanavir might cause these delays, and whether the delays might be linked to another drug called tenofovir (Viread), which is typically used alongside atazanavir. Yet, none of the kids was diagnosed with HIV because their moms took the HIV prevention pill or were on other ARV medications before the kids were born.

However, the study points out that the differences between the two groups are small. Their social emotional score, on the other hand, was five points lower than average.

But when it comes to a baby’s development, such details could add another risk to the plethora of existing socio-environmental and biological risks young children are often exposed to.

While studying HIV-positive pregnant women, Harvard University researchers discovered that one of several drugs they were administered might influence the growth of their children, even though they might not be born with the disease. Visit the journal website at http://www.aidsonline.com.

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