Thursday, July 22, 2010 – By Mike Mooney, West Hollywood
West Hollywood, California (July 22, 2010) - The data has been waiting to appear for several years, and here it is. Published in the Lancet, a Canadian study showed that when highly active anti-retroviral therapy (HAART) anti-HIV drugs are used consistently by people living with HIV, the spread of HIV to others is reduced tremendously.
Michael Mooney writes on health issues, focusing on research and access. WeHo News.
HAART reduces viral load, and when viral load is reduced, in some cases to undetectable levels, there isn't enough virus to infect others, and so new cases of HIV have decreased as the use of HAART has increased.
The Canadian team, led by Julio Montaner at the British Columbia Center for Excellence in Vancouver, analyzed data about HIV patients given HAART and their viral load and then analyzed data on newly diagnosed HIV patients.
"Our results show a strong and significant association between increased HAART coverage, reduced community viral load, and decreased number of new HIV diagnoses," Montaner said.
This is some of the most promising news since 1996, when HAART drugs were first given out and a decrease in deaths from HIV/AIDS resulted. Before HAART appeared in 1996, AIDS was the number two leading cause of deaths of men between 21 and 36 years of age in the State of California.
HAART reduces viral load, and when viral load is reduced, in some cases to undetectable levels, there isn't enough virus to infect others. WeHo News.
After HAART prescriptions had been given out for a couple of years, deaths from HIV dropped below being among the top ten killers.
World-wide, new HIV cases today are ten percent less than they were in 2001, so it appears that the penetration of the world community with HAART drugs has had an effect on new cases around the world.
This is why one good reason that it's important for people who are sexually active to get tested and get treated with HAART if HIV infection happens.
One survey study of gay men in bars around the USA several years ago showed that over 30 percent of men infected with HIV did not know they were infected because they didn't get regular HIV tests.
Now you know another reason to get tested regularly and be part of the solution.
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