An arm of the American Academies of Science has confirmed the drug nevirapine protects babies from contracting the AIDS virus from their mothers.
The Institute of Medicine was asked to investigate a 1990s clinical trial of nevirapine, the IOM said in a news release Friday.
A study in Uganda funded by the National Institutes of Health found a single dose of nevirapine can dramatically cut the risk of mother-to-child human immunodeficiency virus transmission, but that study was later questioned.
The IOM's independent analysis of the Ugandan study confirmed its results.
"The data from the HIVNET 012 study, which showed that nevirapine effectively prevents many infants from contracting HIV from their infected mothers, are sound and reliable," said James Ware, chair of the committee that wrote the report, and professor of biostatistics, Harvard School of Public Health, Boston.
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