20000120

Individualised

treatment for

HIV proposed

CHICAGO: New recommendations by international specialists in the treatment of human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) appeared Wednesday in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA), stressing the importance of individualised treatment plans.

The recommendations by the International AIDS Society-USA (IAS-USA), a non-profit physicians' education organisation, included choosing the best moment to begin treatment, and the optimal combination of drugs Ñ determinations that should be tailored to each individual patient. IAS-USA also recommended continual monitoring of immune system reactions and the evolution of the virus, and the eventual changes in drugs or drug combinations over the course of treatment.

In the mid-1990s, available data led doctors to believe it was possible to eradicate HIV "within two to three years through early and aggressive anti-retroviral drug therapy," said Paul Volberding, chair of the IAS-USA board and a professor of medicine at the University of California in San Francisco.

"Now we know that eradication with drug therapy alone is not a realistic goal at this time. Our new recommendations take this into consideration along with long-term survival", Volberding said.

Specialists of the IAS-USA come from the United States, Canada, France, Spain and Brazil.ÑAFP