Antiretroviral drug Resistance antenatally and during breastfeeding

The purpose of this project is to 

•  Determine if maternal drug resistance mutation (DRM) is a risk factor for mother-to-child transmission (MTCT) during the (1) in utero and/or peripartum period, defined by detection of HIV DNA within the first 14 days of life, or (2) post-partum during breastfeeding. 
•  Determine whether maternal drug resistance mutation (DRM) are preferentially transmitted compared to wild-type (WT) virus to infants, either in utero/peripartum, or during breastfeeding, or whether transmission is a stochastic event determined by frequency of viral variants in the mother’s viral population. 
•  Study the associations of drug resistance mutations (DRMs) with virologic failure (VF) after 6 and 12 months of efavirenz (EFV) based antiretroviral therapy (ART).