Vitamin A supplements for reducing mother-to-child transmission of HIV infection

What is the aim of this review?

The main aim of this Cochrane Review was to assess the effects of giving vitamin A supplements to HIV-positive women, during pregnancy or after delivery, or both, on the risk of mother-to-child transmission of HIV infection. Cochrane researchers collected and examined all relevant studies to answer this question and included five trials. This is an update of a review last published in 2011.

What is the key message of this review?

Giving vitamin A supplements to HIV-positive women, during pregnancy or after delivery, or both, probably makes little or no difference to the risk of mother-to-child transmission of HIV (moderate certainty evidence).

What are the main results of the review?

Five trials met the inclusion criteria of the review. Two trials were from South Africa and one trial each from Malawi, Tanzania, and Zimbabwe. The trials compared women receiving vitamin A supplements to women not receiving such supplements. None of the participants received antiretroviral therapy (ART).

The review shows that in women living with HIV infection and not on ART:

- giving vitamin A supplements to HIV-positive women during pregnancy, immediately after delivery, or both, probably has little or no effect on the risk of mother-to-child transmission of HIV (moderate certainty evidence) and may have little or no effect on child death by two years of age (low certainty evidence);

- giving vitamin A supplements to HIV-positive women during pregnancy may increase the mean birthweight (low certainty evidence) and probably reduces the number of low birthweight babies (moderate certainty evidence), but it is uncertain whether the intervention has an effect on the number of preterm births, stillbirths, or deaths among the women (very low certainty evidence).

The intervention has largely been superseded by ART, which is widely available and effective in preventing mother-to-child transmission of HIV.

How up-to-date is this review?

The review authors searched for studies up to 25 August 2017.

Authors' conclusions: 

Antepartum or postpartum vitamin A supplementation, or both, probably has little or no effect on mother-to-child transmission of HIV in women living with HIV infection and not on antiretroviral drugs. The intervention has largely been superseded by ART which is widely available and effective in preventing vertical transmission.

Read the full abstract...
Background: 

Strategies to reduce the risk of mother-to-child transmission of the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) include lifelong antiretroviral therapy (ART) for HIV-positive women, exclusive breastfeeding from birth for six weeks plus nevirapine or replacement feeding plus nevirapine from birth for four to six weeks, elective Caesarean section delivery, and avoiding giving children chewed food. In some settings, these interventions may not be practical, feasible, or affordable. Simple, inexpensive, and effective interventions (that could potentially be implemented even in the absence of prenatal HIV testing programmes) would be valuable. Vitamin A, which plays a role in immune function, is one low-cost intervention that has been suggested in such settings.

Objectives: 

To summarize the effects of giving vitamin A supplements to HIV-positive women during pregnancy and after delivery.

Search strategy: 

We searched the Cochrane Central Register of Controlled Trials (CENTRAL), PubMed, Embase, and the World Health Organization International Clinical Trials Registry Platform (WHO ICTRP) up to 25 August 2017, and checked the reference lists of relevant articles for eligible studies.

Selection criteria: 

We included randomized controlled trials conducted in any setting that compared vitamin A supplements to placebo or no intervention among HIV-positive women during pregnancy or after delivery, or both.

Data collection and analysis: 

At least two review authors independently assessed study eligibility and extracted data. We expressed study results as risk ratios (RR) or mean differences (MD) as appropriate, with their 95% confidence intervals (CI), and conducted random-effects meta-analyses. This is an update of a review last published in 2011.

Main results: 

Five trials met the inclusion criteria. These were conducted in Malawi, South Africa, Tanzania, and Zimbabwe between 1995 and 2005 and none of the participants received ART. Women allocated to intervention arms received vitamin A supplements at a variety of doses (daily during pregnancy; a single dose immediately after delivery, or daily doses during pregnancy plus a single dose after delivery). Women allocated to comparison arms received identical placebo (6601 women, 4 trials) or no intervention (697 women, 1 trial). Four trials (with 6995 women) had low risk of bias and one trial (with 303 women) had high risk of attrition bias.

The trials show that giving vitamin A supplements to HIV-positive women during pregnancy, the immediate postpartum period, or both, probably has little or no effect on mother-to-child transmission of HIV (RR 1.07, 95% CI 0.91 to 1.26; 4428 women, 5 trials, moderate certainty evidence) and may have little or no effect on child death by two years of age (RR 1.06, 95% CI 0.92 to 1.22; 3883 women, 3 trials, low certainty evidence). However, giving vitamin A supplements during pregnancy may increase the mean birthweight (MD 34.12 g, 95% CI −12.79 to 81.02; 2181 women, 3 trials, low certainty evidence) and probably reduces the incidence of low birthweight (RR 0.78, 95% CI 0.63 to 0.97; 1819 women, 3 trials, moderate certainty evidence); but we do not know whether vitamin A supplements affect the risk of preterm delivery (1577 women, 2 trials), stillbirth (2335 women, 3 trials), or maternal death (1267 women, 2 trials).