UD alum researches ways to help HIV-AIDS babies

Carrie Ziemniak: “If mothers remain untreated, 20-30 percent of their babies will get the disease. This percentage falls to 2 percent, if the mother receives treatment.”

11:04 a.m., Oct. 31, 2005--Carrie Ziemniak graduated from UD in 2004 with a degree in biochemistry, and five months later, she was working as a research assistant to Deborah Persaud, an investigator in the pediatric infectious disease laboratory at Johns Hopkins University. She was at UD Oct. 26 as a speaker at a “Campaign to End AIDS” rally on campus.

“We isolate the virus from the cells in which they hide,” Ziemniak said. She explained that samples from infected babies and mothers are broken down into their DNA components, called genotyping, then, examined to determine how the virus mutated into a form that is resistant to drugs.

She said that most babies born to mothers receiving treatment for the disease don’t get it, and, if they do, it’s because the virus has become resistant to the drugs. Ziemniak said HIV-AIDS is a pandemic spreading across the globe at an alarming rate, but it has become an epidemic among women.

UDaily asked her about her research and AIDS in women and infants.

Q: Why is the disease affecting women more than men?

A: A curious feature of the infection is that women with the same amount of virus as men are at more advanced stages of the disease, and the number of women living with HIV-AIDS has been increasing since the 1980s. In 2003, 3 million more women than men had HIV-AIDS, and newly diagnosed cases are increasingly showing up in women, of whom 70 percent are of African descent.

Q: How do you account for that?

A: Women are more susceptible to the virus for a number of reasons such as lack of education, violence and social/sexual norms. There are also biological factors in that women have more mucosal tissue needed for the virus to replicate.

Q: If an infected woman has a baby, will the baby have the disease? And, if not, why?

A: Babies don’t get HIV-AIDS through the umbilical cord. The two ways that the disease can be transmitted to the baby is during delivery or through breastfeeding. This mother-to-child transmission is a big part of what I study. If mothers remain untreated, 20-30 percent of their babies will get the disease. This percentage falls to 2 percent, if the mother receives treatment.

Q: Then, wouldn’t it seem logical that the disease can be greatly reduced if all pregnant women receive treatment?

A: In financially constrained communities around the world, it is extremely difficult to pay for medications, and in some cultures, it isn’t financially or culturally possible to eliminate breastfeeding. In many places around the world, the cost of formula is prohibitive and clean running water is not available. That means that if a baby does escape the infection during delivery, with breastfeeding, the infant remains at risk. In many countries, bottle feeding is not an option.

Q: Is there anything that can be done to stop the pandemic and curtail the epidemic?

A: Scientific research is the means to the end of HIV-AIDS. The more time that passes, the more ideas and advances are being developed. There are new improvements in drug dosages, side effects interactions with other medications and with preventative and therapeutic vaccine research. Every day there is so much progress in the field that it is hard for me to keep up. We are making progress, but continued research will take time and money.

Article by Barbara Garrison
Photo by Kathy F. Atkinson

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