In what is being hailed as a landmark breakthrough in HIV prevention, a new study has shown that giving anti-AIDS drugs to HIV-positive people can reduce the transmission of the virus to spouses and partners by 96%, U.S. researchers said Thursday.
Though some uncontrolled studies of populations had previously suggested that treatment of patients with antiretroviral drugs could slow transmission of the virus, the new results announced by the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases represent the first large clinical trial to confirm those suggestions — and they showed that the drugs are unexpectedly effective.
In fact, the results of the study of nearly 1,800 couples in the United States and southern Africa were so dramatic that the study’s sponsors decided to terminate it prematurely — four years before its scheduled completion in 2015.
Full Story: AIDS breakthrough: Drugs radically reduce transmission of AIDS virus