Efficacy of highly active triple antiretroviral therapy in preventing mother-to-child HIV transmission in the university teaching hospitals in Yaounde, Cameroom

Paediatric HIV-infection rates remain high in Cameroon in spite of the various existing preventive strategies. This study will provide scientific evidence that HIV-infected pregnant women receiving highly active triple antiretroviral therapy would be expected to have significantly lower viral loads and a lower risk of HIV mother-to-child transmission (MTCT) without scheduled Caesarean section. We enrolled 90 newly diagnosed HIV-infected pregnant women who accepted to participate in the study from the 4 Teaching Hospitals in Yaoundé between January 1, 2006 and December 31, 2008. In addition to routine antenatal care, they received two types of potent triple antiretroviral regimens depending on their initial CD4 counts. Drug efficacy and safety were assessed by CD4 count, viral load, liver enzymes level, fasting blood sugar level, blood urea and haemoglobin concentration level before and after treatment and the paediatric seroprevalence rate. Highly active triple antiretroviral therapy was associated with maternal immunological improvement, statistically significant reduction of maternal viral load (P< 0.05) with resultant low paediatric HIV infection rate (1.1%) and minimal maternal biological impairment. Short courses of highly active triple antiretroviral therapy to prevent HIV MTCT is therefore not only efficacious compared to other treatment options like monotherapy, bitherapy, and bitherapy associated with scheduled caesarean section, but also safe and should constitute the mainstay intervention strategy.KEY WORDS: HIV MTCT- Triple antiretroviral therapy- Adverse effects - Paediatric HIV infection rate