THE EUROPEAN COMMISSION has approved a one-a-day pill, called Atripla, to substitute three medicines currently used to stop viral multiplication in the blood.
“This regime will simplify tablet-taking and be easier on patients,” said Francisco Antunes, Director of the Department of Infectious Diseases at Lisbon’s Santa Maria Hospital.
The family of drugs currently used to treat the disease are called protease inhibitors which prevent the virus from locking onto and gaining entry into the immune system’s white CD4 Helper cells which fight life threatening infections and cancers.
The drug, which was approved in the US in 2006, will be available in the 27 countries of the European Union this year.
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