ROME -- Children who acquired HIV from their mothers are more likely to remain on antiretroviral therapy if they received a full childhood vaccination package, researchers said here.
After performing an adjusted analysis, Andrew Auld, MBChB, a medical epidemiologist at the CDC, reported that children who received a full vaccination for childhood diseases were 2.5 times more likely to still be in treatment six months after beginning therapy for HIV infection (P<0.01) when compared with children who were not fully immunized.
"We found it disturbing, however, that just 9% of the children in our study had received the full childhood vaccination regimen," Auld told MedPage Today during his poster presentation at the International AIDS Society meeting.
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"Health benefits of vaccinations may explain better outcomes among fully immunized children; vaccination completion and documentation should be encouraged and monitored," he said.
