HIV/Aids drugs: WHO to recommend earlier treatment

The World Health Organization (WHO) is recommending that patients start taking medication at a much earlier stage of the disease.

The WHO says the guidelines, which are being launched at an international Aids conference in Kuala Lumpur, could help avert an extra 3m Aids deaths by 2025.

A single pill combining three drugs will be given to people who are HIV positive much earlier, while their immune systems are still strong. Algeria, Argentina and Brazil are already doing this.

The WHO says these guidelines represent a "major shift" in policy, and will result in the number of people in developing countries who are eligible for drug treatment rising from 16m to 26m, or 80% of the total who are thought to have HIV.

It is thought the guidelines will add 10% to the $23bn (£15bn) overall cost of treating HIV/AIDS in developing countries.

WHO believes global donors and the affected countries themselves will be convinced that the idea is cost-effective.

The WHO's HIV/Aids director, Dr Gottfried Hirnschall, said: "It will be very difficult to end Aids without a vaccine - but these new guidelines will take us a long way in reducing deaths.

We're recommending earlier treatment and also safer, simpler medicines that are already widely available.

We also want to see better monitoring of patients, so they can see how well they're doing on the treatment.

Using treatment to reduce transmission is a key part of modern prevention efforts, including our own.

In the UK, we have some of the best treatments in the world, and offering them earlier could be one way of slowing the spread of the epidemic. It could also improve the person's own long-term health.

bbc.co.uk