HIV protection: Could pills work wonders against HIV? (Feature)

Health Features

By Gisela Ostwald Nov 28, 2008, 1:09 GMT

New York /Bethesda, Maryland - Anti-HIV medicines have rescued tens of thousands or perhaps even millions of people from what was once certain death from AIDS. Now researchers are testing whether the pills available since the middle of the 1990s to slow down the progress of the HIV virus that causes AIDS might also deliver another miracle - prevention of the disease in high risk populations. Clinical trials are underway to see whether the pills could preventively block the virus and protect people who are not infected yet by the virus. Depending on the results, they could offer another arrow in the quivers of those on the forefront of fighting the disease that has claimed 25 million lives and left another 32 million people infected with HIV since the 1980s. The top US AIDS warrior, Anthony S Fauci, says he is 'cautiously optimistic' and even 'somewhat enthusiastic' about the new approach. In fact, world scientists have been frustrated by the extremely tricky and deceptive virus which has eluded more than a decade of efforts to find a vaccine. Thus any new ideas to prevent the spread of HIV gain quick traction. Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) at the National Institutes of Health (NIH) in Bethesda, Maryland, spoke with Deutsche Presse-Agentur dpa this week. So far, there are no concrete results, but animal testing, including with non-human primates, has offered some hope for the antiretroviral (ARV) medications to be used for prevention. Fauci hopes for interim results sometime next year at the earliest. Two pills are being tested. One contains the substance Tenofovir, the other one includes Emtricitabine. The medications, which when taken together are known as highly active antiretroviral therapy (HAART), have been effective in preventing the HIV virus from spreading through the body by lowering the HIV count in the blood, semen and vaginal mucous. Researchers have concluded that patients on HAART therapy are less infectious, and believe the same pills might protect someone who is not yet infected. Fauci's institute, NIAID, is participating in a study (HPTN 052) to test whether adults could benefit from the same phenomenon that protects babies from HIV infections who are given medicine before and after delivery, and are protected even though their mothers are HIV positive. Rape victims have also been shown to benefit from the potent combination of anti-HIV drugs shortly after their exposure. The new tests are focused on delivering ARVs prior to exposure to HIV, an an idea known as pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP). The tests involve 1,750 couples in the US, Brazil, Thailand, India and South Africa. In each couple, one partner is HIV positive and the other is healthy. In separate tests, scientists are looking at how such medicines can protect high risk groups such as homosexuals, drug addicts and prostitutes. 'The best case scenario would be that PrEP works in people who adhere to it in a way that really does prevent infection, and that does not give them the impetus to be even more risky in their behaviour,' Fauci said. The research holds out hope especially for women, and particularly in Africa, where having sex with an infected partner who is often unwilling to use condoms is a daily game of roulette. And the downside of such a new approach to prevention? 'The worst case scenario is that people do not regularly take their medication and would feel that because they take it some of the time they are protected and then increase their risky behavior,' Fauci said. Often, people who feel protected 'subconsciously or consciously take more risks than otherwise,' Fauci said. Fauci says the PrEP possibilities do not represent a 'breakthrough' as such - but rather would only offer another weapon to complement the battery of methods now being used to fight the disease: condom use, abstinence, behavior modification, circumcision, topical microbicides, needle exchange and treatment for the ill. He points out that the HAART drugs are quite expensive. There are 2.7 million new infections every year worldwide, and only 30 per cent of infected people in lower income countries receive treatment. PrEP could however help bridge through the period until an effective vaccine is developed. 'For every person we put on therapy, two to three people become newly infected,' Fauci noted. 'The big Holy Grail of scientific work is getting a successful vaccine.'

Talkback

Add your comment (no registration required)

page: 1 2 3

Rev. Mark JamesNov 28th, 2008 - 05:15:56

How about doing an article on how many people HAART has killed. How may cases of 'AIDS deaths' are due to these highly toxic drugs.

Report this comment

ademolaNov 28th, 2008 - 06:10:46

i believe God will help our generation against HIV, and other desise.

Report this comment

jujujohnNov 28th, 2008 - 06:47:48

Greak news. I am tired of condoms.

Report this comment

Matteos MooliaNov 28th, 2008 - 07:09:29

i cant believe this. who does the reporting?

'Clinical trials are underway to see whether the pills could preventively ( 'preventively' isnt a word) block the virus and protect people who are not infected yet by the virus.'

give the drugs to healthy people!?!?!?!? are you kidding me?!?!?!

it drives me crazy. always with the aids, non stop. jesus christ.

let me give you a little lesson in economics...

then look at what took me 1 minute to pull up. what does it all amount to? MONEY.

Number of deaths for leading causes of death a year. Source:CDC

Heart disease: 652,091

Cancer: 559,312

Stroke (cerebrovascular diseases): 143,579

Chronic lower respiratory diseases: 130,933

Accidents (unintentional injuries): 117,809

Diabetes: 75,119

Alzheimer's disease: 71,599

Influenza/Pneumonia: 63,001

Nephritis, nephrotic syndrome, and nephrosis: 43,901

Septicemia: 34,136

then...

Funding for each... in millions..2008 Numbers.
HIV/AIDS 1/ - 2,913
Heart Disease: Coronary Heart Disease - 381
Stroke - 340
Respiratory Disease - 48
Unintentional Accidents? REALLY? OOOOK.
Diabetes - 1,035
Alzheimer's Disease - 644
Influenza - 271
nephrosis not on the list. not sure what it even is.
Septicemia - 49

curious where aids even is?

14,627 deaths in the US in 2007.

total since 1981? 565,927. less than all the heart disease deaths in a single year.

epidemic? hardly.

some other in interesting facts...

Worldwide, coronary heart disease kills more than 7 million people each year.
People living with HIV/AIDS in 2007 worldwide: 33.0 million

this is just living with, not deaths. over a quarter die from heart problems than are even currently infected with hiv. sad.

Report this comment

RyanNov 28th, 2008 - 08:11:45

Matteos Moolia:

You may not know this, but they don't like to list AIDS as the cause of death on the coroner's reports, they still list the opportunistic infection they died from a lot of the time.

Just for fun, see how many people died of Pneumonia in 1981 as an overall percentage of the population, vs. 2007.

Thats just one of the diseases they list AIDS deaths as, they don't want anyone to know how many people are truly infected, or there would be a public outrage and demand for proper funding to research and combat it.

AIDS is largely a social disease, whether the government designed it, or just lets it run rampant, it is being used to wipe out 'social undesirables' as they mark up the medications to treat it by a factor of 25,000% or more (often $250 a month per bottle of meds, and you'll need at least 2 or 3 bottles of different meds), if only rich people can afford to live, then:

Drug companies make a bloody fortune.

The government wipes out the excess population of the underclass.

The government can wage war on gay men and not have to lift a finger or look like they're doing it.

If we put 10% of the budget that we give our military murderers at the Pentagon every year towards AIDS research, we'd have wiped it from the face of the Earth already.

Report this comment

What about teens and oral sex?Nov 28th, 2008 - 08:19:05

I read somewhere that the number of women infected with HIV was increasing.
And I read another report about female teens thinking oral sex was somewhow 'not sex'.

Connect the dots..

Report this comment

NickNov 28th, 2008 - 09:11:41

One thing that worries me is who makes the cash.
Normally people only take medicine when they are sick, then they get better and stop buying it. Oooops that's no good for profits. But the profits will roll in if they can make all the well people take a medicine every day forever.

Anyway, poor people can't afford prophylactic drugs taken every day for the rest of their lives! Who's going to pay for this? why the taxpayer of course, people like me.

This looks like a monopoly, captive market, creation scheme.
Like an Orwellian 'permanent war' economy where the tax money goes from me to the Military/State apparatus. Only this time the taxes go from me to the Drugs industry/State apparatus.

Hey let's get real here. Stop injecting drugs and having unprotected sex with multiple partners or you will probably get sick and die. Just try to live a good decent life and you'll probably live a long and fruitful life too. It's that simple.

Report this comment

MikeNov 28th, 2008 - 10:11:18

There's a lot of funding for AIDS because (1) it kills young and otherwise healthy people and results in a high productive years of life lost, (2) because it is a new disease, so there's a lot of room for improvement in treatment, (3) there's a lot of money to be made, (4) it's fairly easy to do research on and get results relative to other diseases, and (5) it's actually quite interesting from a research point of view and has contributed greatly to our understanding of other diseases and the immune system.

Most of the other preventable causes of death you list are also lifestyle-related, so you can get off your high moral horse: gluttony is just as much of a sin as lust. And the Republicans have been blocking progress on those other diseases: we know what to do, we just can't implement it. Heart disease and many other diseases require stem cell research, cancer and heart disease require public health messages, restrictions on advertising, healthy food standards, and tobacco restrictions. Septicemia and infections require restrictions on industrial antibiotic abuse. Accident reductions require changes in transportation policy and gun policy. Why bother develop any new medicines for those diseases either if the solutions are known, but people like you block implementing them?

Report this comment

moralityNov 28th, 2008 - 10:19:17

'Yeah, What About Teens And Oral Sex:'

Yeah, what about them? At least oral sex doesn't get them pregnant, and the risk of disease transmission is a lot less. Sure, it's better if teens abstain (it doesn't take bible thumping religious extremists to realize that), but if they are going to have sex (and teens do), they should at least reduce the risk and harm from it.

'That pig [Clinton] has caused more harm to the moral standards of this country than anything in recent history.'

That's perhaps true according to the moral double standards of the religious right. Bush lied to the American people in order to go to war, caused the death of thousands of American soldiers, trampled all over the Constitution, and made torture (including sexual torture) an official part of US government policy. And the fact that you think that a blow job is worse than torture and the deaths of American soldiers shows that 'that pig' Bush has done more to harm the moral standards of this country than anything in recent history.

Report this comment

realistNov 28th, 2008 - 13:32:35

IF there wasn't somebody making a bunch of money AIDS drugs, I seriously doubt they would even exist.

Report this comment

page: 1 2 3

Add your comment (no registration required)

Health

HIV protection: Could pills work wonders against HIV? (Feature)

Health Features

Talkback

Similar articles

Latest Headlines in Health

Latest Articles on The Tech Herald

In Monsters and Critics

Corporate

The Fine Print