'Costs and benefits' to HIV treatments

There are both costs and benefits to treating people in the developing world with HIV, researchers have indicated.

Problems with resources, increasing drug-resistance and costs all make positives and negatives for the various strategies in development, according to Dartmouth Medical School.

Paul E Palumbo, professor of medicine and pediatrics at the school, is currently studying how to balance the need to provide help to HIV sufferers with the goal of improving treatments.

He commented: "We have a simple approach that is cost-effective, and reduces transmission [of HIV] by 50 per cent.

"The Achilles heel of that approach is that in the mother and in any infant who does become infected, the virus learns to become drug-resistant."

He pointed out that keeping medicines cold is difficult in much of Sub-Saharan Africa and India.

Professor Palumbo is co-leading a study off anti-HIV treatments in the developing world, on behalf of the International Maternal Pediatric Adolescent Aids Clinical Trials Group.

News brought to you by Global Health TV, connecting health communities