Drug used to prevent HIV transmission from mother to child damages DNA

HIV transmission from mother to child can occur in utero, during labor or from breastfeeding. If left untreated, approximately 25 percent of newborns exposed to the virus from their infected mothers will become infected themselves and potentially develop AIDS. Fortunately, antiretroviral drug combinations, which typically include AZT (zidovudine), a nucleoside reverse transcriptase inhibitor (NRTI), have reduced the rate of transmission from mother to child to less than 2 percent in infants who are not breast fed.