Important note: Information in this article was accurate in 1997. The state of the art may have changed since the publication date.
The Associated Press; 50 Rockefeller Plaza, New York, NY 10020 - Tuesday, September 16, 1997; 9:06 a.m. EDT
Though combining protease inhibitors into a drug cocktail has produced dramatic improvements for thousands of AIDS patients, the new study dims hope that the "latent reservoir" of infection can be eradicated, Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, said Monday.
"I'm quite skeptical about how long it's going to be before we can actually stop the drugs," Fauci said. "I'm not sure we can ever stop."
He opened a weeklong conference by the University of Maryland's Institute for Human Virology in Baltimore that drew 1,000 researchers. The institute is headed by Dr. Robert Gallo, co-discoverer of the AIDS virus.
Evidence of a silent infection comes from a study of 13 patients who had been taking drugs for a year. Nine patients had undetectable levels of human immunodeficiency virus in their blood, which is common for thousands of other patients on the regimen.
But in all nine, Fauci found that evidence of the virus hiding in "resting cells" of the immune system -- white blood cells known as CD4 T-cells.
The idea that drugs could cure AIDS has been championed by Dr. David Ho, a prominent researcher in New York. Based on a mathematical model, Ho said the virus could be eradicated in three years.
Ho plans to take several patients off their drugs and monitor them for a resurgence of virus. The patients have been on the drugs two years.
But Fauci said the projection of a three-year cure was based on the mistaken assumption that "you can completely shut off viral replication."
The anti-viral drugs are capable of suppressing HIV in cells producing the virus, but not inactive ones. One approach would be to create a drug to turn on the dormant cells.
"We're not in the mode of being able to eradicate those cells," Fauci said.
In other AIDS research, tests with an experimental drug has produced preliminary evidence that the drug can help patients resistant to other treatments.
Researchers found that a single dose of the drug, Sustiva, when combined with the protease AIDS drug Crixivan, performed about as well as existing treatments that require the combined use of three or four drugs, The Wall Street Journal reported today.
Researchers with DuPont Merck Pharmaceutical Co. planned to present their findings today at a meeting of the Infectious Disease Society of America in San Francisco.
DuPont Merck, which developed the experimental drug and is a joint venture of Merck & Co. and DuPont Co. , said it already had received permission from the Food and Drug Administration to give Sustiva to AIDS patients who have not responded to other treatments.
Copyright 1997/The Associated Press. Reproduced with permission. Reproduction of this article (other than one copy for personal reference) must be cleared through the Permissions Desk, The Associated Press, 50 Rockefeller Plaza, New York, NY 10020.
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