NEW YORK (Reuters Health) – Treatment with acombination of anti-HIV drugs, known as highly activeantiretroviral therapy (HAART), can improve the immune systems ofinfected patients, but new research indicates that in youngchildren this effect may increase the risk of asthma.

In asthma, an excess amount of inflammatory and immune cells areproduced in the lungs. Thus, any condition that directly orindirectly increases these cells might have an unwanted effect.

“Investigators have assumed that asthma is not a complication ofpediatric HIV infection, because studies (conducted before HAARTwas introduced in the mid-1990s) did not detect the problem,”senior author Dr. William T. Shearer, at Texas Children’s Hospitalin Houston, told Reuters Health.

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