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Conference Focuses on Hope Against HIV, AIDS
Daria Alekseeva of Russia, a delegate to the 2006 International AIDS Conference, photographs a garment made of condoms. The work is by Adriana Bertini of Brazil.
(By Frank Gunn -- Associated Press)
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The mortality rate before the drugs was estimated at 577 per year per 1,000 people. It is now 34. The probability that a person newly enrolled in the study group would be alive in two years has risen from 28 percent to 94 percent.
A study from northern Tanzania, however, found that in 32 percent of people on antiretrovirals, the virus eventually becomes resistant and reappears in their bloodstream.
The single biggest predictor of this problem was whether a person had to pay for the medicine. The longer they had to, the more their risk of "virological failure" increased.
The researchers believe that people who had to buy the drugs themselves skipped doses or went on and off treatment as their income varied. This adds to mounting evidence that people who get free AIDS drugs have much better outcomes.
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There was also disturbing news out of Uganda, which for years has been the African model of a winning battle against AIDS.
HIV infection rates at a sample of 24 prenatal clinics fell from 1992 to 2000. In seven, the fall has continued, and in seven it has leveled off, but in 10 it is rising. In a rural population sample, HIV prevalence in men rose from 5.6 to 6.5 percent in the past four years and in women from 6.9 to 8.8 percent.
The precise reason for this is unknown, but the researchers said it shows that prevention efforts must not let up.
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The pipeline of new AIDS drugs has numerous promising candidates.
Researchers reported very positive results for MK-0518, a drug developed by Merck that is an "integrase inhibitor." It is unlike any of the 25 antiretrovirals in use.
When added to two drugs commonly in use (tenofovir and 3TC, a brand of lamivudine), it knocked back HIV in the bloodstream just as well -- and more quickly -- as those same two drugs taken with efavirenz, another highly successful and popular medicine.
MK-0518 could eventually add one more option to the many now available to AIDS patients.
Another study showed promising laboratory results for a substance called TAT0002, the first in a new class known as "telomerase activators" that may help prolong the lives of HIV-fighting cells that use the protein CD8.
