Researches at the University of Minnesota may have found the key to treating HIV.
The treatment consists of two drugs used in cancer therapy – decitabine and gemcitabine. When the virus was treated with both drugs, it mutated wildly until it died. The process had no toxic side effects.
Trials in mice have confirmed the drugs’ effectiveness, but they must still be adapted for oral use by humans.
The combination of the drugs “reduced HIV infectivity by 73 percent” compared to similar dosages that had little effect when used individually, according to an abstract of the research.
The HIV virus leads to AIDS, a disease that has killed 25 million people since 1981 and affects approximately 33 million people worldwide today.
