New anti-AIDS

2002/07/09 Orobengoa, Olatz - Elhuyar Zientziaren Komunikazioa

• Osasuna
• Medikuntza

Scientists try to find a medicine that can be the solution to this serious problem. The latest novelty is the drug T-20. It is born from the collaboration between American and Spanish scientists, being the first example of a new type of medicine. It acts on a very specific part of the infectious process of the virus: it prevents the adhesion of the virus to CD4 lymphocytes.

To spread the cell that has just been trapped by the virus, it is necessary that it be retained first to the cell. Otherwise, you will not be able to pass your genetic information to the cell and cannot reproduce. In this way, this new drug manages to reduce the concentration of virus in blood.

It has been achieved that 37% of patients who have tested the drug do not detect the number of viruses they had in their blood: 400 copies of viruses per milliliter of blood. In the most spectacular case, the number of viruses went from one million copies of viruses in one milliliter of blood to 25.

However, on this occasion they are not at all good. The new medication is only indicated for patients who have been taking cocktails from other medications for years and should continue to take the cocktail. In addition, it does not completely disappear the virus and say that the virus generates resistance with some ease against the drug.

All this does not, for the moment, make it suitable for use in the poorest places. On the one hand, because the number of patients taking drug cocktails in these territories is very small, and on the other, because the production of drugs in large quantities is very expensive.

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