Antiretrovirals Show Huge Promise for Halting HIV Spread in Two Major Studies
HIV-1 Budding (in Green) From Cultured Lymphocyte CDCNow if we could only pay for the medicine Big time news on the fight against AIDS out of Rome today, and it essentially boils down to this: antiretrovirals work (at least, an astoundingly high percentage of the time when they are used correctly). At the biggest forum on HIV and AIDS in the 30-year battle against the deadly epidemic (it still kills 5,000 people a day, FYI), two breakthrough findings show that antiretrovirals (ARVs) not only battle HIV in infected persons, but can stop the disease from spreading in two important ways: it helps prevent HIV-positive folk from transmitting the disease, and also helps prevent non-infected people from contracting it. A handful of big-time findings were presented, but two stand out. The first major strategy under study, known as "Treatment as Prevention," showed that when HIV-positive people were given an early start on...