A recent case of three infants who becoming infected with HIV virus indicated that HIV virus could be transmitted through pre-chewed food sometimes fed to the infants.

A team of doctors, led by Dr. Aditya H. Gaur from St. Jude Children's Research Hospital in Memphis, Tennessee, has hit upon yet another way through which the HIV virus gets transmitted. All three children were fed with food that had been pre-chewed by care providers infected with HIV.

While two of the three infants' mothers were infected with HIV; the third infant had a great aunt, infected with HIV, who took care of the child.

In first two cases, the mothers had not breastfed their babies. The doctors also examined the mother-to-child transmission of HIV.

The doctors believed that food was infected with the blood present in the saliva of the HIV-infected persons, who had pre-chewed the food before feeding it to the infants.

The team of doctors said that the practice of feeding pre-chewed food to infants, which some care-givers may do during the weaning period, may also explain some of the reported cases of "late" HIV transmission in infants - cases that so far have been attributed to breastfeeding.