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Wednesday, Twenty-Seventh January 1999
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AIDS DRUGS COULD LEAD TO MORE INFECTIONS Powerful new drug
combination therapies designed to to treat AIDS could
backfire, according to US infectious disease experts. Up to
20% more people may become infected with the disease as a
result of the HIV virus developing resistance to the
drugs. Sally Blower, a microbiologist at the University of
California, has developed a mathematical model to forecast the
increase of drug-resistant strains of HIV in San Francisco.
The model shows that if all patients received the optimal
treatment of combination protease inhibitors then infections
would go down by 20%. But patients rarely get optimal
treatment, she says. They often fail to comply with
complicated drug regimes, doctors often prescribe
inappropriate or incorrect doses and some patients are simply
incompatible with the drugs. Any failure in the treatment
process gives the virus a chance to mutate and develop
resistance. If the resistant form of the virus is transmitted
new infections could be impossible to treat, she says. The
model predicts that the spread of resistant strains could
eventually lead to a 20% increase in new HIV infections after
10 years. 'This type of transmission has already occurred,'
said David Baltimore, an AIDS vaccine specialist who is
president of the California Institute of Technology. The
model suggests that the number of new infections will depend
on how successful patients are at keeping to the strict
combination therapy regimes, Blower said. She stressed,
however, that the answer is not to withhold treatment but to
emphasise compliance and to encourage patients to eschew risky
sexual practices. Blower presented her findings to an American
Association for the Advancement of Science meeting in Anaheim,
California on Saturday 23 January.
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Jaime Finguerut (Mr., chem.eng.)
Copersucar
Cx.Postal 162 Piracicaba
Sao Paulo BRAZIL 13400-970
fax +55 19 429 8109
jaime at azul.ctc.com.br
