HIV sufferers can look to longer life

By JEREMY LAURANCE in London

Nearly all HIV patients receiving modern drug treatments can expect to live at least 10 years from the date of infection and may even enjoy a normal lifespan, researchers say.

Deaths from Aids were halved immediately when a new treatment regime was introduced in 1997.

Now new findings show that death rates were cut further, by 80 per cent, in the first four years of the new therapy up to 2001.

The results have boosted optimism that Aids can be transformed from a killer disease into a chronic condition such as diabetes with which people could live into old age.

The findings come from an analysis of 22 studies across Europe, Australia and Canada which assessed the effect of the new treatment regime, called Highly Active Anti-Retroviral Therapy (Haart). This is the name given to a mix of three or more drugs from two different classes of anti-retroviral agents and is now the "gold standard".

Kholoud Porter, of the Medical Research Council's clinical trials unit in London, who led the research published in the Lancet, said: "The introduction of Haart has been a tremendous success. But the longest any patient has been taking it is six years, since 1997. We hope eventually that the survival of people with HIV will be no different from that of people without HIV. We hope we will be able to manage HIV as a chronic infection."

More than 50,000 people in the UK are living with HIV but only half have been diagnosed. Worldwide, over 40 million people have been infected with the virus but most are denied drugs to treat it because of the cost

Dr Porter said: "Most people [in Britain] who know they are infected are getting the treatment at the right time. But obviously there are lot of people who don't know they are infected. Haart has been the best thing that has happened since the cause of Aids was isolated."

Before Haart was introduced, older patients who became infected with HIV in their 40s and 50s had a much lower life expectancy of six to eight years than those diagnosed in their 20s or 30s, who survived on average for 11 years.

Today, nine out of 10 people with HIV can expect to live at least 10 years, regardless of how old they were at the time of infection.

Dr Porter said, "However, our findings do point to the importance of an early diagnosis so that people can access the best treatments at the right time."

The study found that injecting drug users who contracted HIV through shared needles were four times more likely to die of Aids than men infected through sexual contact. Haemophiliacs who were infected through contaminated blood products were three times more likely.

Dr Porter said: "These patients were just as likely to be prescribed Haart but in the case of the drug users one possibility is that they did not take their drugs regularly [and] a sub-optimal dose will not be enough to keep the disease under control."

Lisa Power, head of policy at the Terence Higgins Trust, said: "There is no doubt this treatment is life-saving for many people. You can live a full life with HIV and that is a major reason people at risk should get checked out.

"There are 400 deaths a year [in the UK] from Aids, most of which are avoidable because people aren't diagnosed until they are literally dying."



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