Viral levels in newborn African infants undergoing primary HIV-1 infection

We examined weekly changes in viral levels in seven untreated infants infec ted with HIV at birth. Viral levels spiked immediately but reverted quickly to plateau levels typical of infant HIV infection within 2 weeks of first detected viraemia. We speculated that the depletion of naive, susceptible c ells is responsible for the rapid decrease in spike levels and that the rap id replacement of lymphocytes in infants causes the high plateau viral leve ls (10(5) copies/ml) to be sustained.