Viread Drug

In one of the most promising developments in more than 20 years, scientists claim that drugs used to fight against HIV / AIDS patients can also be effective in preventing the disease first.

The drugs in question are tenofovir (Viread) and emtricitabine, or FTC (Emtriva), sold in combination as Truvada by Gilead Sciences Gilead is the California company best known for inventing Tamiflu.

Previous research has been aimed at finding a vaccine against HIV / AIDS, with the intention of training the immune system against disease. But these drugs work differently. They simply keep 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.

This approach to the fight against HIV / AIDS has been tempting for researchers for many years but has only recently become possible preventive medications have been developed that are safe for uninfected persons to take. Previous drugs had unreasonable effects for uninfected persons.

This situation changed when Tenofovir came on the market in 2001. Tenofovir is powerful and safe, and it should be taken once a day. It does not interact with other medicines or birth control pills, and manifests less drug resistance to other drugs that aid.

** Monkey studies show encouraging results

A major study by the CDC (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention) in Atlanta, Georgia involved six macaques. The monkeys received a combination of tenofovir and FTC and then administered a deadly combination of monkey and human AIDS viruses. They were given the virus to rectal doses to simulate contact between men gays.

Each was given 14 weekly exposures of the virus, and none of the monkeys were infected. In a control group who did not receive the drugs, all but one caught the disease, normally after two exposures.

The scientists then stopped giving 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 are healthy and in good health," reported a CDC researcher.

Now, research teams from other push to have this combination of drugs tested on humans. A study of 29 million CDC drug users in Botswana will now be put to this combination of new drugs.

Another study of 400 heterosexual women in Ghana by Family Health Initiative, funded by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, is studying the effects of tenofovir alone.

But several other studies have failed to materialize because studies of this nature immediately raise suspicions that scientists are using local people as Guinea pigs. The fear is that they intentionally expose subjects to test for the virus.

The cost of tenofovir and Truvada also make testing difficult. In African countries condoms are now largely won by companies, aid groups, UN agencies and Western governments. Although the drugs are relatively cheap, the cost remains an obstacle.

But researchers have been reinvigorated by the stunning results of Atlanta, and new tests are going ahead in pockets of interest around the world.