[afro-nets] Placental Malaria Increases Mother-to-Child HIV Transmission

[Claudio Schuftan <claudio@hcmc.netnam.vn>]

Placental Malaria Increases Mother-to-Child HIV Transmission
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Placental malaria infection during pregnancy significantly in-
creases the risk of mother-to-child transmission of HIV, re-
searchers at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public
Health, has revealed.

According to the report, study of HIV-positive women living in
Rakia, Uganda, found that the mother-to-child HIV transmission
rates were 40 per cent among women with placental malaria com-
pared to 15.4 per cent for women without malaria.

The researchers believed that interventions to prevent malaria
during pregnancy could potentially reduce mother-to-child trans-
mission of HIV.

The study, which was the first to look at the effects of placen-
tal malaria in mother-to-child HIV transmission, published in
the November 2003 issue of the Scientific Journal on AIDS, was
made available to members of the Journalists Alliance on the
Prevention of Mother-to-Child Transmission of HIV (JAP), re-
cently.

"These findings could have potential public health relevance be-
cause interventions to prevent placental malaria during preg-
nancy might reduce the risk of HIV transmission from mother to
child and this could augment current approaches using anti-
retroviral drugs".