No Breakthroughs, But Steady Advance On Aids Researchers’ Progress Report Includes Cautious Optimism

While a cure is still elusive and a vaccine is probably many years away, scientists meeting here for the last five days reported significant gains in AIDS research.

“We can’t declare victory, but we have reached another plateau,” said Anthony S. Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases.

He spoke at the conclusion of the Fourth Conference on Retroviruses and Opportunistic Infections, which drew more than 2,400 scientists from around the country and abroad.

While there were no breakthroughs announced, scientists expressed cautious optimism about the treatment advances that have followed development of a new class of AIDS drugs known as protease inhibitors, which came to market last year.

When used in combination with older AIDS medicines, such as AZT, the protease inhibitors can knock the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) down to undetectable levels in the blood.

Among the significant new developments in antiviral therapy:

The effectiveness of the drug “cocktails” appears to be holding up. Merck & Co., for example, reported that 86 percent of the people taking its protease inhibitor, along with AZT and 3TC, had undetectable levels of virus in their bloodstreams after 68 weeks of a clinical trial.

Several new anti-AIDS drugs are in the pipeline and are expected to be available within the next year.

Efforts are under way to make the new drug regimens, which may involve dozens of pills that have to be taken at different times of the day, much easier for patients to manage.

Still, there are huge unanswered questions about the long-term effectiveness of the drug combinations.

One question is whether the drug cocktails can eradicate all of the virus in an infected person, including viruses hidden in such places as the lymph nodes.

Another big question is whether the immune systems of infected people can be reconstituted, even if the virus can be eliminated.