Different Ways of Stopping AIDS Globally
Medications for Herpes, circumcisions helpful for third world countries
February 2007
An AP article published in the Naples Daily News (02/22/07) outlines that for people in poor countries (where people can’t afford AIDS medications) and because of the stigma of having AIDS, researchers have looked for innovative ways to at least stop the spread of AIDS. Out of 40,000 new infections of HIV annually (along with 4.3 million new cases), and previous studies have shown that herpes infections in patients (on average) triple a person’s chances of getting HIV from someone, and it can also make AIDS three times more “spreadable” from an infected person to another (because herpes sores on the genitals can easily become infected, allowing for an easy transmission of HIV from one person to another).
Because many people who have AIDs (who are contracted with HIV) also are infected with the herpes type 2 virus, the latest study conducted in Africa (and published in the New England Journal of Medicine 02/22/07) found that “women who too the herpes drug valacyclovic has less HIV in their blood and in their genital secretions.”
From this study, there is no correlation made between whether or not this drug (from GlaxoSmithKline PLC) actually reduces the transmission of the AIDS virus. But there is a direct correlation with the amount of the virus someone has in their system and their ability to transmit that virus to other people. Alicia Chang reported in the AP article, “Researchers recently found that circumcisions lowers the risk of spreading HIV, and they hope the same will prove true of treating herpes.”
The study did not receive grants from Glaxo to come to these conclusions (and a larger study was funded by the Bill and Melinda Gates foundation); this “study involved researchers from France, England and Burkina Faso” (Burkina Faso is the town in Africa where the study took place), and it was funded by the French national AIDS research foundation, ANRS.
Dr. Laverne Corey (a leading researcher at the University of Washington) said “it does open some potential avenues to slowing down the AIDS epidemic.”
The study results shows that the AIDS virus was reduced in the body from 20,000 virus copies in the system to 8,000, which is markedly lower, and helps to stop the transmission of HIV from one person to another.
Design copyright Scars Publications and Design. Copyright of individual pieces remain with the author. All rights reserved. No material may be reprinted without express permission from the author.
