Scientists identify drug for AIDS treatment

HIV infected an additional 2.3 million people last year, according to UNAIDS, bringing the global total of HIV-positive people to 35.3 million. Antiretroviral medications (ARVs) can prevent HIV infections from causing AIDS, but they do not cure AIDS. Also, nearly 16 million people who carry the virus do not have access to ARVs, according to World Health Organisation (WHO).

“This has been an absolutely fascinating voyage of discovery,” said team-member Warner Greene, a molecular virologist at the Gladstone Institute of Virology and Immunology in San Francisco, California.

The researchers are now planning a Phase II clinical trial to determine if this drug or a similar drug can prevent HIV-infected people from developing AIDS and related conditions.

The findings of the study have been published in the journal Nature.