MIAMI, June 5 (UPI) -- AIDS specialists in the United States are testing a once-a-day pill that may prevent HIV from becoming full-blown AIDS.
Three drugs -- Emtriva, Viread and Sustiva -- make up the once-a-day pill that is currently being tested in a nationwide clinical trial, the South Florida Sun-Sentinel reported.
One patient in South Florida said the drugs have so reduced his level of HIV that it's undetectable in his blood, although still there.
Doctors say making the medications easy to take is crucial to beating the virus. Because HIV mutates, missing even 8 percent of doses can let a new version of the virus grow that is immune to the medications.
The once-daily pill was first proposed in 2004 by Gilead Sciences and Bristol-Myers Squibb, the newspaper said.
Doctors say the single pill is not right for patients who are already resistant to the drugs, whose virus is unstable, who have liver or kidney problems or who are pregnant.
