On and On into the Multiple AIDS Drug Era

摘要

By the time you read this the 12th World AIDS Conference will have finished in Geneva. The 11th conference, held two years ago in Vancouver, Canada, had ended on a hopeful note, at least for countries with well-funded health-care systems. Evidence was emerging that combinations of drugs active against the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) could lower circulating HIV levels, even to the point of disappearance on currently available assays of viral load. Two groups, whose papers now edge towards the Top Ten, document some of the grounds for optimism. They are the AIDS Clinical Trials Group 320 Study Team (see S.M. Hammer, et al., New Engl. J. Med., 337[11]: 725-33, 11 September 1997; currently at #12 with 19 citations during March-April 1998) and Roy M. Gulick and colleagues in the same issue (pp. 734-9; as of the March-April count this report had not yet attained "Hot Paper" status but seems certain to do so next period).