CONTACTAbout UsCAREER OPPORTUNITIESADVERTISE WITH USPRIVACY POLICYPRIVACY PREFERENCESTERMS OF USELEGAL NOTICE
© 2025 Equal Entertainment LLC.
All Rights reserved
All Rights reserved
By continuing to use our site, you agree to our Privacy Policy and Terms of Use.
We need your help
Your support makes The Advocate's original LGBTQ+ reporting possible. Become a member today to help us continue this work.
Your support makes The Advocate's original LGBTQ+ reporting possible. Become a member today to help us continue this work.
A new antiretroviral drug to treat HIV has proven extremely effective when combined with existing treatment, reports The Lancet.
A study at the Germans Trias i Pujol University Hospital in Barcelona, Spain, examined the effectiveness of giving advanced HIV patients a twice-daily dose of a new protease inhibitor, darunavir, with a low dose of the antiretroviral drug Norvir.
After 48 weeks, lead researcher Bonaventura Clotet and colleagues measured the amount of HIV RNA in the patients' blood and found the amounts to be 10 times lower in 61% of those taking the new drug. Just 15% of the control group, which received existing drugs, experienced the same reduction.
In addition 45% of those taking darunavir-Norvir reduced their HIV RNA concentrations to below 50 copies per milliliter of blood--the lowest recordable value. Only 10% of the control group made the same achievement. The new drug combination also boosted the immune system CD4 cell count by an average of 102. Previous research has shown that less than 10% of patients whose CD4 cell count increases of more than 100 progress to AIDS or die within three years, compared with 85% of those with a CD4 cell count increase of less than 25.
The rates of failure after six years on existing antiretroviral drugs is currently between 11% and 21%. (The Advocate)
From our Sponsors
Most Popular
Watch Now: Pride Today
Latest Stories
After trans people, Trump now erases bisexual people from Stonewall National Monument
July 10 2025 10:45 PM
Black trans woman Dream Johnson killed in Washington, D.C.
July 10 2025 7:59 PM
5 lesbian power couples who play for the same sports team
July 10 2025 12:13 PM
'Gay progressive hot daddy' blasts 'bozos' using his pics for right-wing memes
July 10 2025 11:59 AM