Two antiviral drugs are better than one in slowing the course of
, according to researchers in London. A trial involving 300 AIDS patients from Britain, Germany and Australia has been stopped early after it became clear that those people receiving the AIDS
zidovudine (AZT) together with a herpes drug, acyclovir, were less likely to die than those receiving zidovudine alone.
Independent statisticians ordered the trial to be stopped after finding a ’significant reduction’ in the number of deaths in the group receiving both drugs.
One of the doctors responsible for the trial, Paul Griffiths at the Royal Free Hospital in London, says none of them has yet seen all the data. But the doctors decided to announce the results to the press because the 300 patients would be told and they wanted to avoid ‘misinformation’. He dismissed claims that the findings were a ‘breakthrough’.
Acyclovir seems to affect the joint action of HIV and cytomegalovirus (CMV), a herpes virus common in AIDS patients. Interestingly, acyclovir does not affect CMV disease itself in the patients. Other drugs to treat infections suffered by AIDS patients, such as Pneumocystis carinii, directly slow the infections themselves and slow the course of AIDS.
