The latest pediatric HIV study shows that children with HIV are living much longer than in the 1990s when doctors started prescribing antiretroviral drugs. However, young people with HIV continue to die at 30 times the rate of youth of similar age who do not have HIV. Multi-organ failure and kidney disease continue to be the major causes of death, along with infections. But, the types of infections have changed, from infections traditionally associated with AIDS to infections that are more common among children without HIV. This demonstrates that antiretroviral therapy is working and helping most HIV-infected children live into adulthood. “Will these children have a normal lifespan? Unfortunately, we don’t have all the answers yet. Currently, we don’t have the means to prevent all the complications of HIV infection.” said Lynne Mofenson, M.D., chief of the Pediatric, Adolescent and Maternal AIDS branch at the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD). [via NIH News]
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Tags: adolescent, aids, antiretroviral, HIV, Pediatrics
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Dr. Steven Chang, the author of DailyDose, is a staff physician with Kosmix RightHealth. Dr. Chang practices Family Medicine at the University of California Davis Medical Center, where his medical interests include both pediatric and geriatric care, public health, gay and lesbian health, and sleep medicine. Dr. Chang trained at the Stanford University affiliated O'Connor Hospital, and was a research fellow at the National Institute of Health. He holds an M.D. from McGill University and a BA in Public Health from Johns Hopkins University.