Treatment extends AIDS survival times

CHICAGO - Drug treatment has extended the median survival time for Americans diagnosed with Aids from one year to four years, say US researchers.

But this also means that more effort has to be made to prevent the disease's spread.

A study of 394,705 Americans diagnosed with Aids between 1984 and 1997, and reported to the US Centres for Disease Control and Prevention, showed that survival times rose from 11 months to 46 months.

In 1987, antiretroviral drugs first appeared as a treatment for HIV, the virus that leads to Aids. By 1996, a drug cocktail of protease inhibitors and reverse transcriptase inhibitors meant that a diagnosis with Aids no longer equalled a death sentence.

Between 1996 and 1999, the number of Americans living with Aids increased 33 per cent from 240,184 to 320,282.

"Increasing prevalence resulting from improved survival times implies that more infected persons will need HIV-related services for a longer time," said study author Lisa Lee.

"Enhanced prevention efforts to decrease subsequent transmission will be necessary to help sustain safer sex and needle-sharing behaviours for a longer period."

- REUTERS

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