January 6, 2017

Fred Hutch Science Spotlight: Reduced CMV Transmission

A collaboration between scientists at the University of Washington and the Fred Hutch Vaccine and Infectious Disease Division looks at antiretroviral use and Cytomegalovirus transmission in mothers and children in Kenya. Cytomegalovirus (CMV) is an opportunistic infection contracted by people with HIV. In Kenya, most HIV- exposed children acquire CMV within the first year of life, primarily through their mother’s breast milk. These infants with both HIV and CMV have an increased risk of disease progression, neurologic disease and death. Researchers within this collaboration evaluated the impact of highly active antiretroviral therapy (HAART) on CMV transmission and breast milk levels related to maternal HIV.

Jennifer Slyker is the study’s primary investigator.

The Science Spotlight team at Fred Hutch selected this team’s recent study for the December issue of Science Spotlight, a monthly online publication highlighting scientific investigation. Dr. Jennifer Slyker, Global WACh Assistant Director, says in the Spotlight: “We were surprised to see an effect on CMV transmission but not on CMV DNA levels in breast milk, which we think is the major mode of CMV transmission in the first year of life. Other groups have also observed this in observational studies. Our next step is to explore maternal and infant immune mechanisms of protection.”

The research concludes new findings to suggest that starting HAART later in pregnancy may decrease infant CMV infections, by mechanisms independent of breast milk CMV levels. These data also suggest that policy changes in high-HIV burden countries for starting pregnant women on lifetime antiretrovirals could have profound implications for the epidemiology of mother-to-child CMV transmission at a population level.

Read more about the study here in the December edition of the Science Spotlight.