Study on HIV-infected babies shows need for early testing, WHO says

New data showing that HIV-infected babies treated in the first weeks of life are four times more likely to survive than those left untreated highlights the importance of early diagnosis, a leading World Health Organization official said Wednesday.

Early results of a new study found that antiretroviral drug therapy given to infected South African infants not yet showing any HIV symptoms within the first three months of life helped those babies live longer than infants who started therapy after showing signs of the disease.

Current World Health Organization guidelines call for drugs to be administered only after signs of a weakening immune system are observed.

The early results of the South African study were so promising that the findings were set to be released to the WHO and other health officials for evaluation to consider changing the WHO guidelines.

"These are new and exciting and potentially very important data," the director of the WHO's AIDS program, Kevin De Cock, told The Associated Press on the sidelines of an International AIDS Society Conference in Sydney.

"It's obviously immensely important in its insight into pediatric treatment strategies," he added. "But the data will need to be looked at more before we really say what the implications are for treatment policy."

Every year, about half a million babies are born infected with HIV worldwide.

De Cock said the South African study, which was funded by the U.S. National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, highlighted the need for early HIV diagnosis in infants and children.

"You can't scale up therapy or provide appropriate treatment to people if they don't know their HIV status," he said. "There's a need across the board to scale up HIV testing."

The trials, involving 377 babies between 6 weeks and 12 weeks old, were started in July 2005 in Soweto and Cape Town, South Africa. Of those given the drugs early despite no sign of illness, only 4 percent died compared to 16 percent in the group where treatment was delayed until the babies showed signs of disease.

Last month, an independent safety and monitoring board in London concluded that the results were so overwhelming, the study should be altered to allow all of the infants to begin treatment and the early findings should be released to the scientific community.

"We're hoping that these results will have an implication in formulating guidelines all over the world," lead co-author Dr. Avy Violari of the University of the Witwatersrand in Johannesburg, South Africa, told The Associated Press on Tuesday. Violari presented the research to the Fourth International AIDS Society Conference on Wednesday, its final day.

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Associated Press Medical Writer Margie Mason contributed to this report from Hanoi, Vietnam.