
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: THURSDAY, March 28, 1991                   TAG: 9103280128
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL                    PAGE: A-4   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: 
DATELINE: NEW YORK                                LENGTH: Short

STUDY: TREATED VICTIMS MAY SPREAD AIDS

Treatment that delays appearance of AIDS in infected people could raise community death rates from the disease unless the treated people take steps to avoid infecting others, a study suggests.

The result emphasizes the need to link treatment to effective counseling for reducing transmission of the virus, the study authors said.

The work is presented in today's issue of the British journal Nature.

Researchers noted that the drug AZT, also called zidovudine, is used to delay the appearance of AIDS in persons infected with HIV-1, which causes acquired immune deficiency syndrome.

The reason such treatment could raise community death rates is that it gives infected people more time to infect others, the researchers said.

They found that an increase in AIDS death rates was possible if infected people tended to infect few others and few infected people were treated. - Associated Press

by CNB