New HIV treatment with fewer pills for patients to take

Main Category: HIV / AIDS
Article Date: 13 Mar 2004 - 0:00 PDT


According to researchers, a new treatment for HIV will need fewer pills than current treatments. Patients on Reyataz (atazanavir) need only take 3 pills a day as opposed to the traditional 12 (sometimes even 20).

This offers another treatment option for HIV patients. The problem patients have is that they often have to change their medication. The HIV virus, after a while, becomes resistant to a particular treatment.

Some patients are currently on Reyataz. Doctors have to take responsibility for any of the side effects the patient might suffer. Doctors have to prescribe it on an individual basis.

Not any more. Now Reyataz has been licensed (UK), therefore it can be more widely prescribed.

HIV requires an enzyme to reproduce. Reyataz blocks that enzyme. That is why Reyataz is called a protease inhibitor.

Protease inhibitors are given to patients as a second stage of treatment, after they have developed resistance to another class of drugs. However, they have nasty side effects (affect the way our bodies metabolise fat). Patients' faces can become drawn, their abdomens can swell and they can even develop humps on their backs.

Dr Margaret Johnson, clinical director of HIV/AIDS Services, Royal Free Hampstead NHS Trust, said: 'HIV is now a long-term condition in the developed world so with the focus of treatment shifting to allowing patients to live more fulfilled lives. Reyataz is an important advance. Not only has it been shown to be as effective as the previous standard of care, but you can take it once daily and it minimises the gastrointestinal side effects - particularly diarrhoea - which have been hurdles with other protease inhibitors.'

The great thing about Reyataz is that it does not appear to have side effects (at least not as bad as the other protease inhibitors).

HIV patients have to take drugs every day. It is easier for them if they only have to take three a day rather than ten or twenty.

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