Breastfeeding and HIV Transmission (2)
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Dear Sir
The paper from SAfAIDS you send to us through AFRO-NETS is quite a nice
synthesis on HIV and breastfeeding. I worked in a team on this theme
for years and as you say international organisations have been slow on
this.
Just one detail, that I do not understand clearly, maybe as a non pure
English speaking person. "the baby mucosa are more susceptible to in-
fection because of sores and inflammation (e.g. caused by mixed feeding
or formula feeding)". If my understanding is good, formula feeding
means no breastmilk at all and in that case, maybe the baby has sores
or inflamed gut but HE IS NOT EXPOSED TO HIV so his risk to that infec-
tion is null (others ok but not HIV).
You do not mention vaginal cleansing beside changed obstetric practices
or micronutrient supplementation. It has not been proved a high effi-
cacy against HIV but if labour is prolonged it could work (Malawi
study), it is cheap and does not need HIV testing.
Sincerely,
Philippe Msellati
Ivory Coast
mailto:msellati@bassam.orstom.ci
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