Mobeen H. Rathore, M.B.B.S (M.D.), CPE, FACPE, FIDA, FAAP, pediatrics professor at the University of Florida College of Medicine-Jacksonville, is among a team of physicians nationwide to have the results study started 14 years ago published this week in the New England Journal of Medicine.
The study found that babies with neonatal herpes simplex virus who were given acyclovir as a preventive medicine had improved brain development and were less likely to have the herpes infection come back.
The drug is also used to treat herpes, but this is the first definitive clinical trial that shows using acyclovir can prevent the recurrence of herpes infection in babies, said Rathore, associate chair of the Department of Pediatrics and chief of the division of pediatric infectious diseases and immunology.
“Neonatal herpes is a very devastating disease in children and recurrences make the outcome even worse, to have something that will help that child is very gratifying,” Rathore said.
The article, “Oral Acyclovir Suppression and Neurodevelopment after Neonatal Herpes” appears in the Oct. 6 issue of the weekly journal.
Neonatal herpes simplex virus is passed along from the mother to the child, and is most likely to occur when the woman has her first active case of herpes during the pregnancy.
About 5,000 to 6,000 babies nationwide are born with the disease each year, Rathore said, and it is a neurologically devastating disease.
Rathore is one of 30 physicians across the country that participated in the trial and authored the paper.
The data was gathered on infants from 1997 to 2008.
Read the full article in the New England Journal of Medicine.
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