The Associated Press

- A new combination of anti-viral drugs currently being tested by the Public Health Ministry could reduce the rate of AIDS transmission from infected mothers to their babies to only 2 per cent.

Given that about 10,000 pregnant women in the country are HIV-positive, more effective perinatal HIV prevention measures must be put in place to protect newborn babies from the fatal disease, Public Health permanent secretary Dr Mongkol na Songkhla said yesterday.

Mongkol was speaking after an international academic seminar on the situation regarding children with Aids in Thailand.

"At present we prescribe Zidovudine, an anti-viral medicine, to infected pregnant women. Medical research has showed it cuts the transmission rate to 6 per cent," he said.

Mongkol said his ministry and the Perinatal HIV Prevention Trial (PHPT) programme of the United States and France, which conducted successful Zidovudine research, had initiated the new formula by adding another medicine, Nevirapine, to the current recipe in a bid to lower the figure even further.

"If the Zidovudine and Neviparine formula works well, the transmission rate could be reduced to only 2 per cent.

"The result of new clinical trials should be available by next year," he said, adding that the new formula was being tested in 35 hospitals.

Mongkol said there were an estimated 695,000 Aids sufferers in the country. The number is rising by about 29,000 a year, including 4,200 children.

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