BRUSSELS, Aug 22 (AFP) - Drugs used to fight the AIDS virus and Hepatitis B can help eradicate a disease afflicting banana and plantain plants in the Third World, according to a study by Belgian researchers released Friday.
"Bananas and plantains constitute the basic foodstuffs of over 400 million people in Africa, Asia and Latin America," said one of the study's authors, professor Philippe Lepoivre of the university of Gembloux in southern Belgium.
Such plants are often affected by banana streak virus (BSV), which uses the same enzyme to replicate itself as Hepatitis B or AIDS, he told AFP.
The new study reveals that adefovir and tenofovir, two anti-HIV drugs discovered by researchers at Belgium's university of Leuven, are effective in eradicating BSV in bananas, he said.
He hopes that the drugs can be used against the banana disease within months. "The main beneficiaries of this program are small farmers for whom it is crucial to increase the range of productive varieties which are resistant to the disease," Lepoivre added.
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