- "...although death rates have been
falling in Europe, rates of new infections has not changed in recent years."
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- LONDON (AP) -- Death rates in Europe of people infected with the AIDS
virus have fallen 84 per cent since 1995, mostly because of new drugs and
combinations of treatments, according to a new study.
-
- The study, published in this week's issue
of the Lancet, a British medical journal, was the largest of its kind on
AIDS-related deaths in Europe -- involving 4,270 HIV patients in 50 centres
across Western Europe and Israel.
-
- Death rates are also decreasing in the
United States and other developed countries, where advanced treatments
are more widely available than in the developing nations. But the decline
in death rates in Europe is the steepest reported to date, the researchers
said.
-
- The study found that from March to September
of 1995, one in four patients died, compared with one in 25 patients who
died during the same period in 1998.
-
- The decline began after September 1995,
coinciding with the introduction of a new class of drugs called protease
inhibitors, and the new way the drugs were combined.
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- "It was quite clear that these treatments
are decreasing death rates, but we didn't know the extent of the impact,"
said Andrew Phillips, one of the lead researchers of the study at London's
Royal Free Centre for HIV Medicine.
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- A study earlier this year found that
deaths in the United States decreased by 75 per cent between early 1994
and mid-1997.
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- About 33 million people around the world
are infected with HIV -- two-thirds of them in sub-Saharan Africa and about
two per cent in Western Europe.
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- Phillips said scientists do not know
whether the death rate will stay down.
-
- There is a danger that it may creep up
again after patients have been taking the new drugs for a few years, unless
new treatments are developed.
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- The United Nations said earlier this
week that although death rates have been falling in Europe, rates of new
infections has not changed in recent years.
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