Publications by authors named "N Bengu"
Article Synopsis
- Researchers studied 284 young children in South Africa who started HIV treatment early to see how well they could control the virus after treatment.
- About 84% of these kids managed to hide the virus while on treatment, but only 32% were still virus-free after more than 3 years.
- Some boys were able to stay virus-free even after stopping their treatment for months, which might be linked to differences in how boys and girls' immune systems respond to the virus.
Article Synopsis
- In KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa, high rates of HIV and hepatitis B virus (HBV) coinfection pose challenges for maternal and infant health, particularly regarding mother-to-child transmission (MTCT) of HBV.
- A study assessed HBV prevalence among HIV-positive mothers and screened their infants at risk, revealing that 8.6% of mothers were HBV positive, while 31.4% had markers indicating HBV exposure.
- Despite treating infants with antiretroviral therapy, HBV MTCT was low, with one HBV infection identified at 12 months, highlighting the need for better vaccination and prevention strategies for HBV among at-risk populations.
Point-of-care (PoC) testing facilitates early infant diagnosis (EID) and treatment initiation, which improves outcome. We present a field evaluation of a new PoC test (Cepheid Xpert® HIV-1 Qual XC RUO) to determine whether this test improves EID and assists the management of children living with human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) infection. We compared 2 PoC tests with the standard-of-care (SoC) test used to detect HIV infection from dry blood spots in newborn infants at high risk of in utero infection.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFObjective: The worldwide incidence of pregnancy for women living with perinatal HIV infection is increasing. Subsequently, there is growing risk of second-generation mother-to-child HIV transmission. The infant clinical outcomes for such a phenomenon have yet to be described.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: Early HIV diagnosis allows combination antiretroviral therapy (cART) initiation in the first days of life following in utero (IU) infection. The impact of early cART initiation on infant viral reservoir size in the setting of high-frequency cART nonadherence is unknown.
Methods: Peripheral blood total HIV DNA from 164 early treated (day 0-21 of life) IU HIV-infected South African infants was measured using droplet digital PCR at birth and following suppressive cART.