November 2005
Mother-to-child transmission of HIV
How is HIV transmitted from mother to child?
Without intervention, between 25% and 35% of the children born to HIV-positive mothers will themselves be infected. In about 50% of the cases, transmission from mother to child occurs during labor and delivery. Scientists don't yet understand how exactly that transmission happens, but they have found that some treatments can prevent most cases. However, to many HIV-positive pregnant women in developing countries, these treatments are not available or acceptable. The hope is that better understanding of mother-to-child transmission will lead to more effective, more affordable, and more acceptable treatments. A study by Jesse Kwiek and colleagues (of the University of North Carolina) published in the international open-access medical journal PLoS Medicine implicates placental microtransfusions in HIV transmission.
Placental microtransfusions cause exchanges of small amounts of blood between the mother and the baby. They occur in most pregnancies once labor starts, because the contractions cause small areas of rupture in the placenta. However, the overall amount of blood exchanged differs from delivery to delivery. Until recently, it was not possible to measure the extent of these microtransfusions for a particular delivery, but now scientists have developed an assay based on umbilical cord blood that can do this. In this study, the researchers made use of this new assay to ask whether there is a link between the extent of placental microtransfusions and the likelihood of HIV transmission.
Kwiek and colleagues studied a group of mothers and children in Malawi. All of the mothers were HIV-positive, and some of them transmitted the virus to their children. This transmission occurred either during the pregnancy or around delivery, and the researchers knew the timing for each case. They also knew how the children were born: approximately three quarters by vaginal delivery and one fifth by emergency caesarean section. The researchers determined the level of placental microtransfusions from the umbilical cord blood and then looked for correlations between HIV transmission and the level of microtransfusions. They found no correlation for the cases where HIV was transmitted during pregnancy. For cases of transmission around delivery, however, higher levels of microtransfusions were associated with a higher risk of HIV transmission for vaginal deliveries.
If a connection between microtransfusions and transmission is confirmed by other studies, it might help to improve the timing of short-term prophylaxis regimens and possibly lead to the development of new strategies for preventing mother-to-child transmission of HIV.
Citation: Kwiek JJ, Mwapasa V, Milner DA Jr, Alke AP, Miller WC, et al. (2006) Maternal�fetal microtransfusions and HIV-1 motherto-child transmission in Malawi. PLoS Med 3(1): e10.
The open-access journal PLoS Medicine is the source for these articles and can be reached at: www.plosmedicine.org.
All works published in PLoS Medicine are open access. Everything is immediately available without cost to anyone, anywhere--to read, download, redistribute, include in databases, and otherwise use--subject only to the condition that the original authorship is properly attributed. Copyright is retained by the authors. The Public Library of Science uses the Creative Commons Attribution License.
CONTACT:
Jesse John Kwiek
University of North Carolina
CB 7435
Chapel Hill, NC USA 27599-7435
919-843-4384
919-966-0584 (fax)
[email protected]
About PLoS Medicine
PLoS Medicine is an open access, freely available international medical journal. It publishes original research that enhances our understanding of human health and disease, together with commentary and analysis of important global health issues. For more information, visit http://www.plosmedicine.org.
About the Public Library of Science
The Public Library of Science (PLoS) is a non-profit organization of scientists and physicians committed to making the world's scientific and medical literature a freely available public resource. For more information, visit http://www.plos.org.