A Study of Nevirapine Used Alone or in Combination With AZT in HIV-1-Infected Children

Monotherapy phase: To evaluate and compare the safety, tolerance, pharmacokinetics, and preliminary activity of nevirapine administered alone in mildly to moderately symptomatic HIV-infected children ages 2 months to less than 18 years; to evaluate and compare the safety, tolerance, and pharmacokinetics of nevirapine in HIV-infected children ages 1 day to less than 2 months. Combination therapy phase: To evaluate and compare the safety, tolerance, pharmacokinetics, and preliminary activity of nevirapine administered in combination with zidovudine (AZT) in mildly to moderately symptomatic HIV-infected children ages 2 months to less than 18 years. Compounds with reverse transcriptase inhibitory activity that are more potent and less toxic than the nucleoside analogues are needed. Nevirapine (BI-RG-587) has shown in vitro inhibitory activity against HIV-1reverse transcriptase and has shown a synergistic inhibition of HIV-1 replication when combined with zidovudine (AZT) in a plaque reduction assay.