An aggressive program to prescribe anti-retroviral treatment (ART) in HIV-infected everyone, could stop all new infections in five years and finally delete the epidemic. Thus expressed Dr Brian Williams of the Center for Epidemiological Modelling and Analysis in South Africa, yesterday.
Dr Williams is part of the body of experts who believe that the development of anti-HIV drugs is probably the best hope for preventing and even eliminating the spread of AIDS. Instead he rejected the option to wait which was considered an effective vaccine development, or just rely on people to change their sexual lifestyle.
The idea will be tested next year, started a controlled clinical trial involving thousands of people who lived in a section of South Africans with HIV and AIDS incidence is high. Dr Williams said that effort would be followed by similar experiments in the United States, where HIV is rampant in some cities.
"Our fastest expectancy using ART not only to save lives, but also to reduce HIV transmission. I believe if we use an effective antiretroviral drug, can stop the spread of HIV in five years," said Dr Williams.
"ART lets stop the spread of HIV and AIDS, AIDS related sufferers reduce by half in the past 10 years and eliminate the infection within 40 years," he told the American Association for the Advancement of Science in San Diego, California.
Anti-retroviral drugs dramatically lower the concentration of HIV in a person's blood stream, in addition to protecting against AIDS patients. The drug significantly reduce transmission among individuals.
Dr Williams and his supporters believe, if an infected person has enough to be treated, will decrease the infection rate so that the epidemic will die. He believes AIDS can be effectively abolished in the middle of this century.
"The problem is that we use the drugs to save lives, but did not use to stop the contagion," said Dr Williams.
Blocking transmission can only be done with extensive testing followed by rapid treatment using anti-retroviral drugs for those who were found HIV positive.
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