Drugs hope in AIDS fight

A NEW category of drugs may save the lives of HIV/AIDS patients who fail to respond to other treatments, according to a new study.
Raltegravir -- the first in a new class of anti-retroviral drugs called integrase inhibitors -- dramatically reduced the presence of the HIV virus and boosted immunity in clinical trial patients, especially when combined with other medications.

Integrase inhibitors act by targeting and disrupting an enzyme that allows HIV virus to invade the host's cellular genome.

In clinical tests on 178 patients with advanced HIV infections, the new drug "showed unprecedented levels of virological efficiency", US virologists Pedro Cahn and Omar Sued report in the British journal Lancet.

The treatment "achieved virological suppression even in patients with limited options", they say, predicting the new drug will "have a major role in salvage therapy" -- a term used to describe last-ditch efforts to save those with highly compromised immune systems.

"Clearly, we are in a new era of anti-retroviral therapy," they say.

Until now, no drug has successfully inhibited integrase enzymes.