Data collected since the year 2000 show an HIV transmission rate of 0% among women who were taking HIV treatment at the time of conception, had an undetectable viral load at childbirth and did not breastfeed, the National French Perinatal Cohort reports to the Conference on Retroviruses and Opportunistic Infections (CROI 2022).
The statement ‘undetectable equals untransmittable’ (U=U) is based on data on sexual transmission, not vertical transmission. Nonetheless, the French report shows what is possible in a high-income country with uninterrupted access to health care.
“In the absence of breastfeeding, and in the French context of free access to antiretroviral therapy and monthly plasma viral load assessment, suppressive antiretroviral therapy initiated before pregnancy and continued throughout the pregnancy can eliminate perinatal transmission of HIV,” say Dr Jeanne Sibiude and colleagues.
Read the full story at Aidsmap.
All Aidsmap reports from CROI 2022.
Source : Aidsmap
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