HIV DRUG REGIME A PROGRAMME FOR LIFE

Patients taking drugs for HIV may be taking them for life, suggests the latest research published in Science magazine.

These are not the positive results researchers had expected – they had hoped that after several years of treatment with highly active antiretroviral treatment (HAART), a powerful multidrug regime, the disease would be cured.

However, it appears from recent studies conducted on patients who rigidly adhered to HAART for the previous 30 months that the HIV cells do not mutate and resist the drugs. Researchers now realise that, at the moment, taking large doses of drugs is a life-long commitment for HIV infected patients (Journal Watch, 1997; 17: 189-90).