Ground Report

A drug that helps prevent babies from catching the AIDS virus at birth can also protect them while nursing,researchers from Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore reported recently.Babies of HIV-infected women who were given the drug nevirapine while they breast-fed were half as likely to become infected,the researchers told a meeting in Boston of AIDS experts.Nevirapine is already widely used to protect babies at birth.A single dose given to the mother as she goes into labor and to the baby at birth cuts transmission by 47%.But babies continue to become infected after birth,via their mothers’ breast milk,which can carry the virus.