Drug Therapy Removed HIV from the Bloodstream

When a combination of drugs was administered to people with HIV, their condition was markedly improved. Specifically a combination of a protease inhibitor and two other drugs eliminated the HIV virus from the patients' bloodstreams. All of the patients began to receive the drug therapy within three months of contracting the virus. Researchers believe that the earlier people receive treatment for AIDS, the better chance they have at fighting the disease. This is simply because the longer the virus is in the body, the more time it will have to spread to many parts of the body.

This fact is the one problem with the combination drug therapy. As researchers suspected, while the virus disappeared from the bloodstream, traces of it still lurked in lymph tissue of the patients. Scientists hope that these copies of the virus are defective and unable to reproduce and that as the study continues, the lymph cells with HIV may just die off.

"Researcher to Extend Promising AIDS Study," The New York Times, January 23, 1997

[Return to What's New]

Search | How to Order | E-mail Us