Doctors announce discovery of improved HIV drug

At the eighth Conference on Retroviruses and Opportunistic Infections Feb. 4-8 in Chicago, doctors announced new drugs that demonstrate an extraordinary ability to keep HIV from replicating.\nThe Centers for Disease Control and Prevention also announced a plan to reduce the number of infections in the United States by about half.\nDoctors said they have discovered new mutated strains of the HIV/AIDS virus that are resistant to many popular treatments. This resistance is making the disease more difficult to treat, and ultimately more deadly.\nThe mutant strains have been passed on by people already infected, making those newly infected with the disease unreceptive to standard treatments, according to The Associated Press.\nTibotec, an international pharmaceutical company, said new HIV/AIDS treatments, which are still in the developmental stage, might be able to restrict HIV's ability to develop resistance to current drugs.\nResearchers have just started human tests with the new drugs, so there is not enough information to know if they will be safe or will work, according to The Associated Press.\nBiology professor Richard Holdeman said there are about 235 clinical trials going on around the country to test new therapies for AIDS and its associated diseases.\n"In general, AIDS drugs (anti-HIV) fall into three categories," Holdeman said. "Two of the categories are designed to block the activity of a molecule called reverse transcriptase (RT)."\nHe said RT is unique to retroviruses, such as HIV, and is required for the viral life cycle.\nAccording to Britannica.com, reverse transcriptase is an enzyme that can synthesize DNA from RNA, which is a reversal of normal transcription. The RT enables the virus to permanently implant its genetic material into that of an infected cell.\nThe third class of drugs Holdeman described include new treatments.\n"(These) drugs are called protease inhibitors … these drugs interfere with a viral protein necessary for processing the gene products of HIV. This also disrupts the life cycle of HIV."\nDr. David Ho of the Aaron Diamond AIDS Research Center in New York City told The Associated Press the new protease inhibitors are promising.\n"We have for the first time a very, very powerful protease inhibitor that could suppress resistant virus. That's pretty impressive," he said.\nBut HIV mutates rapidly and becomes resistant to drugs, which is something these new drugs are trying to stop or decrease, according to The Associated Press.\nHoldeman said there are solutions to the problem, one being to use a combination of drugs simultaneously.\n"This is called HAART (Highly Active Anti-Retroviral Therapy)," Holdeman said. "The HIV infection can be kept at bay for long periods of time, but in most cases the virus will eventually develop resistance even to the multiple-drug therapy."\nIn combining the medicines, Holdeman said doctors monitor their patients for a resurgence of the virus and can alter the treatment to prevent the virus from developing.\nBut all of these treatments have some side effects, including weight loss, cholesterol retention and liver damage, Holdeman said.\nDr. Helene Gayle, director of the CDC National Center for HIV, STD and TB Prevention, told the Wall Street Journal the CDC is looking to counsel those infected with HIV against spreading the disease.\n HIV programs were initially designed to bring HIV awareness to those not infected, but Gayle said it is possible to target those already infected, because with the new potent AIDS drug therapies, people are more willing to be tested and obtain care. Under the program, Gayle said the CDC would work to reduce the number of new HIV cases in the United States annually from 40,000 to 20,000.\nBut CDC officials are concerned because of uncertainty about whether the Bush administration will approve funding for the program, according to the Associated Press. The new initiative might require as much as $900 million annually, at least $200 million more than the CDC's current annual budget for prevention efforts.\nSaturday, the White House had no comment because the budget blueprints had not been released. A spokesperson said the money allotted to the CDC has not been determined.\nSenior Katie Dillard, director of the program for the HIV/AIDS education program for the Outreach Kenya Development Volunteers, said education is important and is something OKDV focuses on when members go to Africa.\n"We feel that this basic information is important for everyone, regardless of what other advances have been made," she said. "We would love to take advantage of the new HIV/AIDS drugs to ameliorate the rampant spread of HIV/AIDS in Kenya, but unfortunately this is more difficult than it may seem."\nShe said HIV/AIDS drugs have been offered at a reduced rate to many African countries, but are still too expensive for the average family.\n"If we could somehow make a clinic with these drugs available a reality, it would be wonderful and extremely beneficial," Dillard said. "But funding is harder to find than it may seem."\nDillard said the most cost-effective way to handle the problem is through education.\nDr. Hugh Jessop, director of the IU Health Center, said the Health Center was one of the first places in Bloomington to educate students about HIV/AIDS. He said the Center began providing programs 19 years ago, in 1982, when the virus first came to the nation's attention.\n"If you're HIV positive, it's not the end of the world," he said."We know so much more now than we did then"