Malaria may raise mother-child HIV infection rate
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Women who are HIV positive may be more likely to pass the virus to their children during pregnancy if they are also infected with malaria, scientists in Cameroon said on Friday.
Tests carried out in Yaounde showed that malaria, which kills a child in Africa every 30 seconds, boosts production of a substance that could increase HIV replication in the placenta and prevent it fully protecting the fetus from infections.
“Our research highlights the fact that placental malaria…could play an important role in mother-to-child HIV transmission in utero that has been underestimated so far,” said Anfumbom Kfutwah, a virologist at Cameroon’s Pasteur Center.
Researchers began investigating the links between malaria and HIV, which can lead to AIDS, after discovering that HIV transmission from mother to child increased at the end of the rainy season, when malaria is most prevalent.
“Each disease by itself is a major problem both for the individuals affected and the health care system,” said Andreas Heddini from the Multilateral Initiative on Malaria, which is organizing a pan-African malaria conference in Yaounde.
“But the fact that they frequently occur together is a major complicating factor and we need more research to clarify how the two infections interact and how to best treat co-infection,” he said in a statement issued at the conference.
AIDS—which has no known cure—killed about 2.3 million people last year in Africa. An estimated 3.1 million were newly infected during the past year alone.
TWO BIGGEST HEALTH RISKS
An estimated 15 to 30 percent of mothers infected with HIV will transmit the infection during pregnancy or delivery in the absence of medical help, according to the World Health Organization.
Kfutwah said the study, in collaboration with the Institut Pasteur research foundation in Paris, looked at placentas from women who were HIV positive and negative and who had malaria or were free of the disease.
Evidence of a link between malaria and fetal HIV infection could prompt health authorities to consider routinely testing pregnant women in African countries for both diseases, he said, while treating women for malaria during pregnancy could become a way to reduce the risks of HIV transmission.
“It’s clear that African scientists are aware that we cannot look at HIV and malaria in isolation,” Heddini said.
“We must investigate any interactions between that are arguably the two biggest health threats facing the continent.”
Hopes for an effective malaria vaccine, which doctors consider the best hope in fighting the disease, were boosted on Tuesday by new research presented at the conference showing an experimental shot can protect children for at least 18 months.
Researchers said GlaxoSmithKline Plc’s vaccine reduced cases of life-threatening malaria by 49 percent and all clinical cases by 35 percent in a group of Mozambican children treated in 2003.
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