Estimated Aids related deaths in South Africa: 1 622 241 at noon on Wednesday November 23 2005
Malaria could encourage mother-to-child transmission of HIV, according to research on the Science and Development Network website (www.scidev.net).
Pregnant women with malaria produce increased quantities of a chemical called TNF-alpha in their placenta, which nourishes the foetus as it develops, say scientists in Cameroon. This chemical boosts HIV replication and might explain why more children are born with HIV after the rainy season there, when malaria cases also increase, says lead researcher Afumbom Kfutwah of the Pasteur Centre in Yaoundé.
Kfutwah pointed out that studies elsewhere in Africa had found links between malaria and HIV-transmission.
In 2003, a Ugandan study of nearly 750 pregnant women with HIV showed that the virus was transmitted to babies in 40% of cases when the mother also had malaria. Transmission dropped to just 15% of babies when the HIV-infected mother did not have malaria as well.
The ongoing study’s initial findings were presented at the Fourth Multilateral Initiative on Malaria conference in Yaoundé.
‘We need more resources to increase knowledge and better understand the interaction between HIV and malaria,” pleaded Albert Kilian, former malaria adviser to Uganda’s health minister. ‘Evidence to date suggests that this is a complex interaction.”
‘People living with HIV are a specific vulnerable group for malaria and need access to prevention tools such as insecticide-treated nets,” adds Kilian.
Modest Mulenga of the Tropical Diseases Research Centre in Ndola, Zambia, says the findings suggest that if it were possible to reduce the number of malaria parasites in the placenta, this might limit HIV transmission from mother to child.
Source: SciDev.Net