ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1997, Roanoke Times
DATE: Wednesday, March 12, 1997 TAG: 9703120033
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: C-3 EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY
DATELINE: NORFOLK
SOURCE: ASSOCIATED PRESS
Protease inhibitors are working miracles in prolonging the lives of people infected with HIV.
Until recently, the staff of the Tidewater AIDS Crisis Taskforce mourned at least a dozen deaths a month from the disease. Now, they rarely hear of more than two a month.
Nationally, the AIDS epidemic has taken a dramatic turn, changing from a terminal disease to a chronic illness.
A ``cocktail'' of expensive, experimental drugs is forcing the virus that causes AIDS, HIV, to retreat, with much of the credit going to protease inhibitors introduced in the past two years.
U.S. deaths from AIDS fell 13 percent to 22,000 in the first half of 1996, from 24,900 a year earlier, federal health officials reported Feb. 27.
In Virginia, there was a 22 percent drop, to 345 from 443, for the same period.
That change is infusing sufferers with new hope and providing researchers with some breathing space to find more permanent solutions. It also is confronting caregivers and AIDS patients with new, unexpected dilemmas.
``There's kind of an unusual thing I've been seeing,'' said Dr. Alan Wilson, an Eastern Virginia Medical School physician and researcher with one of the largest AIDS practices in southeast Virginia.
``People were focused on just living for the next two to three years,'' he said.
Norfolk resident Kyle Taylor, 38, was diagnosed with the HIV virus in 1988. Over the years, he said, those with AIDS often have heard that a big breakthrough was coming.
``After a while you get to the point where you don't want to set yourself up to say, I'm all better now and I can go out and do the things I did before,'' he said. ``Because I'm not all better. The virus is not eradicated. Who's to say that next month I won't die?''
But for now, he's feeling better. He's been on various drugs for three years as part of national clinical trials, and in December he started the full combination of inhibitors.
Maria Johnson, 34, has had AIDS for 14 years. She lost her daughter, Emanuela, to AIDS last summer, and the heartbreak only worsened her condition. Last fall, Johnson began taking protease inhibitors.
``I consider it very much a miracle,'' said Johnson, whose immune system is rapidly recovering. ``I am a longtime survivor of AIDS, but this has really given me hope that I'm not going to die.''
The protease inhibitors attack AIDS by zeroing in on reproduction of HIV and crippling a critical enzyme it needs. Once the virus' prodigious rate of reproduction has been halted, the body's own immune system can fight back. Patients' overall health improves because they eat and sleep better.
The good news is not universal. Some people can't afford the drugs. Some patients can't take the drugs because of side effects. Some wait too long. Doctors have found that the earlier patients start taking the medications, the better they work.
Still, for many AIDS patients, the drugs have been life-changing.
Perhaps the greatest, while the hardest to document, is the effect on patients as they realize how a normal or near-normal life expectancy changes their priorities.
``They're now well enough to go back to work, but many of them say they don't want to return to their previous jobs,'' Wilson said. ``They've had some time to do some thinking, and some are going back to school, others are looking at totally different careers.''
LENGTH: Medium: 71 linesby CNB