AIDS Vaccine Research
In one of the most promising developments in more than 20 years, scientists claim that drugs used to control HIV/AIDS in patients may also be effective in preventing the disease in the first place—AIDS research.
The drugs in question are tenofovir (Viread) and emtricitabine, or FTC (Emtriva), sold in combination as Truvada by Gilead Sciences Inc. Gilead is the California company best known for inventing Tamiflu.
AIDS vaccine research has been aimed at finding a vaccine against HIV/AIDS, with the intention of conditioning the immune system against the disease. Previous drugs have simply kept the virus from reproducing, and have already been used successfully by health care workers to prevent them from being infected by the virus carried by patients.
Tenofovir came on the market in 2001. Tenofovir is powerful and safe, and it only has to be taken once a day. It also does not interact with other medicines or birth control pills, and manifests less drug resistance than other AIDS medications.
A major AIDS vaccine research conducted by the CDC (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention) in Atlanta, Georgia, involved six macaques. The monkeys were given a combination of Tenofovir and FTC and then administered a deadly combination of monkey and human AIDS viruses. They were given the viruses in rectal doses to simulate contact between gay men.
Each was given 14 weekly exposures of the virus, and none of the monkeys became infected. In a control group which did not receive the drugs, all but one got the disease, normally after just two exposures.
The scientists then stopped giving the drugs to the test group to see if the prevention was only temporary. The results were equally impressive. None of the monkeys contracted the disease. "We're now four months following the animals with no drug, no virus. They're uninfected and healthy,” reported a CDC researcher.
Now other AIDS research teams are pushing to have this drug combination tested on humans. A $29 million CDC study of drug users in Botswana will now be switched to this new drug combination..
Health News
Provided by Rick Hendershot
Article not intended to diagnosis, treat HIV or AIDS. Always consult your doctor for health care diagnosis and treatment.
