Drugs can reduce the risk of the HIV virus spreading

An HIV current person who takes anti-retroviral medication when diagnosis, rather than when their health declines, will cut the risk of spreading the virus to uninfected partners by 96percent, in keeping with a study.

The United States National Institutes of Health sampled one,763 couples in that one partner was infected by HIV.

It absolutely was abandoned four years early as the trial was so successful.

The World Health Organization said it had been a "transverse development".

The study began in 2005 at thirteen sites across across Africa, Asia and therefore the Americas.

HIV-positive patients were split into 2 groups. In one, individuals were immediately given a course of anti-retroviral medication.

The other group solely received the treatment when their white blood cell count fell.

Both got counselling on safe sex practices, free condoms and treatment for sexually transmitted infections.

Among those suddenly starting anti-retroviral therapy there was only one case of translocation between partners.

In the other cluster there have been 27 HIV transmissions.

'Permanence commitment'
"This breakthrough is a serious game changer and will drive the prevention revolution forward. It makes HIV treatment a brand new priority prevention option," said Michel Sidibe, govt director of the Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/Aids (UNAIDS).

But he warned that it'd cost a lot of than ten billion greenbacks to provide medicine to the 10 million individuals worldwide who are currently not receiving medication for HIV.

The World Health Organization says sexual transmission accounts for 80p.c of all new HIV infections. Its director general, Dr Margaret Chan, described the announcement as a "crucial development"

She added: "The findings from this study can more strengthen and support the new steerage that WHO is releasing in July to help people living with HIV defend their partners."

The worth of anti-retrovirals, in preventing transmission, had been speculated for a while after observational studies, however researchers say this can be the primary time it has been proven in clinical trials.

Keith Alcorn, from the NAM, an HIV/AIDS charity, said: "This study resoundingly confirms what heaps of smaller studies are telling us for many years.

"International donors cannot ignore the evidence any further: HIV treatment could be a very powerful kind of HIV prevention, and might have a major impact on the HIV epidemic within the worst-affected countries.

"What we tend to want currently could be a renewed commitment to HIV treatment, and studies to indicate how to urge the utmost benefit out of this breakthrough at country level."