New 'nuke' now
The new anti-HIV drug tenofovir (brand name Viread) received EU licensing
approval on 7 February. "Commercial supplies will be available in
all clinics within the next two weeks," Bill Lindsay of tenofovir
manufacturers Gilead Sciences told PN.
Tenofovir is very easy to take - one pill, once a day, preferably with
food - and so far appears to cause a very low level of side effects.
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Tenofovir is a nucleotide (with a 't'). This means that although the
active form is similar to the nucleoside (with an 's') drugs like AZT,
d4T, ddI, 3TC and abacavir, the body does not have to perform several
chemical operations on it to make it useable.
Tenofovir's European licence restricts its use to people who have already
failed at least one HIV treatment, though in practice, doctors will be
able to prescribe tenofovir as they feel appropriate. Most tenofovir trials
were carried out on drug-experienced patients. The reason for this is
that it works with most strains of HIV, resistant to the nucleoside drugs,
so it could be a valuable 'salvage' therapy.
Vaccine trials - and tribulations
In a recent animal trial of an experimental HIV vaccine, seven out of
eight vaccinated monkeys successfully resisted subsequent infection with
a lethal 'designer' Aids virus. But the eighth monkey's virus resisted
the vaccine.
Drs Dan Barouch and Norman Letvin at Harvard University were astonished
when they discovered the monkey's HIV mutated, over the course of several
months, into a
form that was 'invisible' to the anti-HIV immune cells stimulated by the
