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Small Drug Pouch May Offer New Tool to Protect Newborns From HIV

July 3rd, 2010 at 05:42am Under Development Report

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This is the VOA Special English Development Report.

Researchers say they have found a way to extend the storage life of a drug used to treat H.I.V. Their work could give infected mothers in the developing world a new way to prevent the spread of the AIDS virus to their newborn babies. The drug is nevirapine. If it is given within seventy-two hours after birth, it can often protect babies from H.I.V.

Researchers at Duke University in North Carolina have developed a small pouch made of foil and plastic. They say current tests show that the pouch can safely store the drug for as long as four months. But they expect that final results in October will show it can keep the liquid stable for up to twelve months.

That way, H.I.V.-infected women could have plenty of time to get the pouch from a health care provider early in their pregnancy.

Caroline Gamache is a biomedical engineer at Duke who worked on the project.

CAROLINE GAMACHE: “Many mothers deliver at home in sub-Saharan Africa and it’s very difficult for them to get to a hospital or clinic which may be miles away in that time period. And so we are proposing to give this pouch to mothers in their first or second trimester, when they come in for their first antenatal care visit. And then they would take the pouch home and they’d have it at their hands at the time of delivery.”

The idea is that mothers would pour the liquid into the baby’s mouth as part of an H.I.V. treatment program.

The drug company Boehringer Ingelheim developed nevirapine. It says one dose of the medicine given to mother and child prevents the spread of H.I.V. in more than fifty percent of cases.

Boehringer Ingelheim has been working with the nonprofit organization PATH to offer a similar pouch for the past several years. The nevirapine is contained in a small dropper placed inside the pouch.

They got the idea from health workers in Kenya. The workers had been putting the medicine into droppers, then wrapping the tube with tape, aluminum foil and plastic. PATH designed a foil pouch that could keep the medicine stable for up to two months.

Adriane Burman is with the PATH office in Seattle, Washington. She says the pouch is an important tool for preventing the spread of H.I.V. from mother to child.

She noted a United Nations report that in two thousand eight about four hundred thirty thousand babies were born with H.I.V. Nine out of ten were born in Africa. The report said nearly all the mother-to-child infections could have been prevented through interventions.

And that’s the VOA Special English Development Report, written by June Simms. You can find transcripts, MP3s and podcasts of our reports at voaspecialenglish.com. I’m Steve Ember.

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Correction: This story misstated the protection offered by a foil pouch designed by the group PATH to hold a medicine dropper of nevirapine. The drug is considered safe for up to two months in the dropper; the pouch itself is only for packaging protection.

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US to End HIV Travel Ban in January

February 10th, 2010 at 08:47am Under Health report

This is the VOA Special English Health Report.

In nineteen eighty-seven, H.I.V./AIDS joined a list of diseases that could keep a person out of the United States. The government later tried to cancel its decision. But Congress made the travel ban a part of immigration law. People with H.I.V., the virus that causes AIDS, could seek an exception, but that meant extra work.

Travelers show their documents to immigration officers at Los Angeles International Airport

Last year, Congress and President George W. Bush began the process of ending the travel ban. Now President Obama is finishing that process.

BARACK OBAMA: “We talk about reducing the stigma of this disease, yet we have treated a visitor living with it as a threat.  We lead the world when it comes to helping stem the AIDS pandemic, yet we are one of only a dozen countries that still bar people with H.I.V. from entering our own country.”

A final rule published Monday will end the travel ban effective January fourth. H.I.V. will no longer be a condition that can exclude people. And H.I.V. testing will no longer be required for those who need a medical examination for immigration purposes.

AIDS has killed more than twenty-five million people since the early nineteen eighties.

In September, there was news that a vaccine showed some ability to prevent H.I.V. infection in humans for the first time. The full results of the vaccine study were presented in late October at an international conference in Paris. They were also reported in the New England Journal of Medicine. The researchers confirmed that the study in Thailand produced only “modest” results.

The United States Army sponsored the vaccine trial. The study combined two vaccines, using versions of H.I.V. common in Thailand. Neither vaccine alone had shown success in earlier studies.

Thai researchers tested the combination in more than sixteen thousand volunteers. Half of the volunteers got the vaccine. The others got a placebo, an inactive substance. All were given condoms and counseling on AIDS prevention for three years. The study found thirty-one percent fewer cases of infection in the vaccine group than in the placebo group.

But critics said the findings could possibly have resulted from chance. The announcement in September was based on all sixteen thousand volunteers. Almost one-third of them, however, did not follow all the required steps in the study. Results just from those who did were similar to the larger group, but the influence of chance was more of a possibility.

Still, the researchers said the study produced enough valuable information to offer new hope for AIDS research.

And that’s the VOA Special English Health Report. I’m Bob Doughty.

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