non detection of hiv-1 proviral dna in pbmcs of the neonates born to iranian hiv-infected mothers in pmtct program

Background: early diagnosis of immunodeficiency virus-1 infection in children and access to treatment for this infection is critical in decreasing infant mortality. objectives: the aim of the current survey was to determine the presence of hiv-1 genomic rna in plasma and proviral dna in peripheral blood mononuclear cell (pbmc) specimens of neonates born to hiv-infected mothers. methods: from march 2014 to february 2018, 73 neonates born to hiv-1-infected mothers covered by the prevention of mother-tochild transmission (pmtct) program were enrolled in this study to compare two different diagnostic methods. after the extraction of viral rna of plasma and genomic dna of pbmc specimens, hiv-1 rna and proviral dna was tested by amplification of the long terminal repeat (ltr) region of hiv-1 using real-time pcr. results: out of 73 evaluated infants, 41 infants (56.2%) were male. the average age of the mothers with hiv-1 infection was 30.7 ± 5.2 (range: 19–47) years. the results revealed that none of the infants were infected with hiv-1, and also all were negative for hiv-1 genomic rna in plasma specimen and proviral dna of hiv-1 in pmbc samples. during the present study, 20 infants born to hiv-1 positive motherswhowere not included in the pmtct project were accidentally identified. four infants (20%) out of these 20 infants were infected with hiv, all were infected with crf35-ad of hiv, and none carried variants with surveillance drug-resistant mutations. conclusions: the results of the present study showed that two molecular methods of detecting hiv infection (presence of genomic rna of hiv-1 in plasma and proviral dna of hiv-1 in pbmc specimens) are completely in agreement with each other, and the pmtct program is possibly an effective program.