Anti-HIV pills taken immediately after sexual intercourse stops AIDS virus infection: Study

If used immediately after sexual intercourse with a person possibly infected with the AIDs virus, the currently available anti-HIV pills could prevent the risk of getting the infection.

Commonly used anti-retroviral drugs not only cures the AIDS causing HIV virus in affected patients but can significantly reduce the transmission of the deadly virus through sexual intercourse, according to a new study.

Among the 349 infected heterosexual patients who started immediate treatment against HIV using the available drugs, only one person got infection in a trial study funded by Bill and Melinda Foundation.

This suggests that anti-HIV pills can prevent AIDS virus infection in 92% of cases, if they can consume the pills immediately after sexual intercourse with a suspiciuos individual like a social sex worker.

The HIV infection rate following unprotected sexual intercourse was 2.24 in every hundred people per year in the study group.

But when treated with anti-HIV pills, the rate of virus transmission and subsequent infection dropped to less that half a percent –0.37%, researchers reported in the leading medical journal Lancet.

This study which was also funded by the U.S. National Institutes of Health, supports another  study that suggested the spread of HIV in the worst affected African nations could be cut by 95 percent in a decade if all those persons started taking medicines immediately after the sexual intercourse.

Now the researchers are planning to conduct a larger study to further establish the findings which is currently being disputed by certain sections of the scientific community.

The researchers, however, say that patients and other care-givers need not have to wait till the outcome of such studies to make treatment immediately after intercourse a practice.

“We should not wait for the results of further models, observational studies, or the ongoing couple-based prevention trial before engaging in population-based trials of ‘test-and- treat’,” said Francois Dabis, a researcher at the Universite Victor Segalen in Bordeaux, France.

Abacavir (ABC), Emtricitabine (FTC), Lamivudine (3TC), Didanosine (ddI), Zidovudine (AZT),  Apricitabine, Stampidine, Elvucitabine, Racivir,· Amdoxovir, · Stavudine, (d4T), Zalcitabine (ddC), Tenofovir, Efavirenz,  Nevirapine,  Loviride, Delavirdine, Etravirine, Rilpivirine,  Lersivirine, Raltegravir · Elvitegravir, Atazanavir,  Fosamprenavir,  Lopinavir, Darunavir, Nelfinavir, Ritonavir, Saquinavir, Tipranavir,  Amprenavir, Indinavir are etc are the among the anti-HIV drugs.

AntiHIV pills also come in combined formulations  in brand names such as Com