Both
studies have shown that the drugs provided 100% protection of monkeys
if the antiretroviral drugs were taken monthly. Moreover, they found
evidence that an injection once every three months may work too.
The
tests are to be now performed on human to prove the same efficiency. In
case of success, this may be the biggest breakthrough in preventing the
disease as many people fail to take their daily preventive pills
regularly. According to an AIDS expert of Mailman School of Public
Health at Columbia University – Dr. Wafaa El-Sadr, the preliminary trial
on humans will be started late this year, while a bigger one might be
just years away.
According
to modern studies, healthy people under high risk of getting infected,
have 90% of being protected in case they take small doses of
antiretroviral drugs daily. The main cause for a person taking drugs
and getting infected is in case he/she failed to take the pills every
day without any fail. The trials that gave these results were held on
gay men, intravenous drug users and couples with one of the partners
being infected.
Such
results were the same with trials run on African women. Some of the
women claimed they were afraid of side effects of pills, while others
were afraid someone might see the pills and assume they were already
infected. If these women had instead got a shot once every three month,
this could change the situation drastically. As practice has shown,
women from developing countries are ready for this as some are already
receiving shots of long-lasting birth control. Most scientists believe
this is a great example of how it might work.
The
studies on monkeys included injections, washes and placebos and helped
scientists to not only prove the drug is effective, but also to find the
correct amount of medicine that has to be in the blood to prevent the
infection.
The
human trial, which is to be launched in the end of this year, will
include 175 people from U.S., South Africa, Malawi and Brazil. According
to Dr. El-Sadr, from Columbia University, this study may take up to
three years before they will be able to launch a bigger trial. This is
due to ethical reasons as the trial is very dangerous and most people
would like to have a choice of either to take a pill or to use extra
prevent methods as condoms.
Still
this remains to be a very important trial which is to bring us a
solution for protection from one of the most dangerous diseases. READ MORE: http://news.naij.com/61016.html
No comments:
Post a Comment