NIH issues guidelines for prevention and treatment of secondary infections

New guidelines to assist health care workers in preventing and treating the secondary infections that can afflict US children exposed to, or infected with, HIV, were published by the National Institutes of Health and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. 

The new guidelines provide a reference manual for the treatment of these secondary infections, describing warning signs of potentially hazardous interactions between drugs used to treat HIV and its secondary infections, current standards for treating the inflammation accompanying the immune system recovery made possible by new anti-HIV drugs, as well as when to discontinue preventative treatment no longer needed after the immune system has recovered.