Cocktails of anti-AIDS drugs reportedly cut the rate of progression from HIV infection to full-blown AIDS by 86-percent.
Researchers find the effectiveness of highly active antiretroviral therapy (HAART), a combination of at least three treatments from two drug classes, increases with time.
Dr Jonathan Sterne of the University of Bristol in England says, "Our results indicate that HAART reduced the rate of progression to AIDS by 86 percent and that its effectiveness compared with no treatment increased with time since initiation."
The anti-AIDS drug cocktails have changed the illness in Western countries from a death sentence to a chronic disease.
Some 3,200 patients involved in a Swiss study after January 1996 were studied when HAART was first available in Switzerland.
The impact on patients of HAART was compared with those under dual therapy and no drug treatment at all.
Sterne says, "The very large benefits of HAART that are achievable in developed countries should remind us of the urgency of providing treatment for millions of people who could benefit in other parts of the world, particularly sub-Saharan Africa."
The results are reported in the Lancet
