November 5, 2002
Trials over three years will test the drug in sexually active adults at three test sites in Africa and one in Asia. In addition to testing the safety and efficacy of the protocol, the study will assess patients' adherence to the regimen. The study will test FHI's hypothesis that giving a highly active antiretroviral drug to people before they are exposed to HIV would produce a drug level sufficient to fight off an initial infection, Cates said.
Charles van der Horst, director of University of North Carolina's AIDS clinical trials unit, has reservations about the approach. While women would benefit from a pill protecting them from HIV, the pill will not "prevent them from getting syphilis, gonorrhea, chlamydia or pelvic inflammatory disease, which can still do grave harm to women."
Cates acknowledges that tenofovir taken preventatively would be only one part of a medical arsenal against HIV that includes condoms, preventative drugs, vaccines, microbicides and treatment for STDs -- infections that might increase a patient's likelihood of being infected with HIV. "We need them all," he said.
Adapted from:
Herald-Sun (Durham, N.C.)
10.31.02; Anne Krishnan
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