Important note: Information in this article was accurate in 1996. The state of the art may have changed since the publication date.

Reuters NewMedia, Inc. - 11 July 1996
Cynthia Osterman

But they were quick to warn that the findings, announced at the 11th International Conference on AIDS, were based on early experiments with a small group of people. They said more research was needed to back up the dramatic results.

The therapy consisted of a potent three-drug cocktail including a new class of medicine called protease inhibitors and two older-line compounds known as nucleoside analogues which include AZT.

In a study at the Aaron Diamond AIDS Research Centre in New York, nine AIDS patients who started the triple therapy within three months of becoming infected were found to have no sign of human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) in their blood. The patients have stayed virus-free for periods ranging from three to 10 months.

"If you think of HIV as a raging fire ... we put out the fire," said researcher Martin Markowitz. "Cure is a dangerous word ... There is no magic bullet. What this means is that we turned off viral replication."

The findings represent a startling breakthrough in the 15- year battle against the AIDS pandemic which has killed nearly six million people. Until now scientists have been dogged by failure in their attempts to corner the elusive virus.

David Ho, director of the Aaron Diamond centre, said evidence from the study so far led him to believe it might be possible to cure AIDS using the three-drug combination for one to two years.

The drugs used in the test were Norvir made by Abbott Laboratories Inc (ABT.N) and the drugs AZT and 3TC from Glaxo Wellcome Plc (GLXO.L).

In the current experiment, Ho said the most virulent aspects of the virus had been knocked out using the new therapy. The question now facing researchers was how long the drugs would have to be continued before the virus was completely killed.

"Based on analysis, and based on what we know today, the answer is one to two years," he said. But he stressed, "This is an experiment. No patient has been cured."

Introduced in the last six months, protease inhibitors block an enzyme crucial to the multiplication of HIV in its later stages. The older drugs attack the virus in the early stage of replication and the combination of the medicines appears to deliver a powerful one-two punch.

But researchers fear the virus might return once the drug treatment is stopped. The only way to find out is to halt the therapy and they will know by September, at the end of one year's treatment, whether they can do so with their first volunteer.

They also have to investigate whether the virus takes refuge in other parts of the body such as the nervous system even when it is eliminated from the bloodstream and lymph nodes. If so, the disease will be much harder to eradicate.

Researchers also worry about potential harmful side effects of the potent drugs and the possibility that the virus could develop long-term resistance to the therapy.

In another sign of the promise of the new drugs, Hoffmann-LaRoche Ltd. and Abbott Laboratories released preliminary data from a study testing for the first time the effectiveness of combining two protease inhibitors.

They said 43 patients completing six weeks of the study saw a median decrease in levels of HIV in the blood of 99.6 percent, and also a rise in their disease-fighting CD4 immune cells. The companies said the combination was "generally well tolerated" by patients.
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