Important note: Information in this article was accurate in 1998. The state of the art may have changed since the publication date.
Important note: Information in this article was accurate in 1998. The state of the art may have changed since the publication date.
Reuters NewMedia, Inc.; Monday August 3, 9:28 pm Eastern Time
Neil Nathanson said the course of the disease in the population had changed, and research needed to change with it.
"AIDS is the plague of the 20th Century," Nathanson wrote in a commentary in the journal Nature Medicine. He said drug cocktails had made big inroads against the HIV virus that causes AIDS, but added that the current available drugs did not work in many people.
"Clearly there is a need for simpler, less toxic and cheaper drug regimens," he wrote. New formulations that attack the virus at different points in its life cycle are also needed, he said.
Women should be a main target of research, Nathanson, whose agency is one of the National Institutes of Health, added.
"In view of the dramatic increases in HIV transmission to women -- a four-fold rise in AIDS cases in females over the last five years compared to a two-fold increase in males -- further basic biomedical research related to the etiology and pathogenesis of HIV disease in women is needed," he wrote.
"Although male condom use has been established as an effective method to reduce HIV transmission, we lack effective, inexpensive and acceptable female-controlled methods to block transmission," Nathanson added.
He bemoaned the absence of a microbicide on the market -- a gel or cream that women could use, with or without a man's knowledge, to kill HIV.
"Sexually transmitted diseases (STDs), other than AIDS, have been shown to significantly contribute to HIV transmission, and we have yet to control these infections on a global basis," he added.
"STD prevention and treatment should be an integral component of the AIDS research agenda."
Nathanson said drug treatment had been shown to reduce perinatal mother-to-child transmission of HIV, but he said little research has been done on other ways to reduce the risk for babies of infected mothers.
"The virtual elimination of perinatal transmission in our nation is a goal that should be vigorously pursued," he wrote.
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