Drug combo prevents HIV spread in mice

DALLAS, Jan. 15 (UPI) -- U.S. researchers said it appears that existing AIDS drugs can prevent vaginal transmission of HIV in laboratory mice.

A research team at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center used a "humanized mouse" model to test the anti-retroviral drugs, the medical center said Tuesday in a release.

The study, published online in PLoS Medicine, used human/mouse chimeras that have fully developed human immune systems and produce the infection-fighting cells that are specifically targeted by HIV in humans.

While almost 90 percent of the humanized mice inoculated vaginally with HIV became infected with the virus, none of the humanized mice given the anti-retroviral drugs emtricitabine (FTC) and tenofovir disoproxil fumarate (TDF) displayed any evidence of infection.

Women are more susceptible than men to HIV infection and vaginal exposures result in a majority of the estimated 6,800 transmission events a day, the report said.

Lead author Dr. J. Victor Garcia-Martinez cautioned that the experiments were conducted on humanized mice and not humans. "It will take additional work to translate these observations to humans," he said.