PARIS, Nov 19 (AFP) - A common antibiotic that costs less than 10 US cents per person a day can dramatically cut the death rate among children with the AIDS virus, according to a study in Zambia published in next Saturday's issue of The Lancet.
Co-trimoxazole, a combination of two drugs that is one of the cheapest antibiotics in the world, was used in a test that involved 534 Zambian children aged under 15 who had the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV).
Half of the children were given the drug each day in the form of an oral dose; the other half were given a harmless lookalike called a placebo.
When researchers did a followup 19 months later, they found that 74 (28 percent) of the children in the co-trimoxazole group had died, while 112 (42 percent) had died in the placebo group.
The findings were so remarkable that the study was discontinued on ethical grounds. The placebo group were immediately put on co-trimoxazole.
The clinical reason for the success is unclear, but it is thought the drug combats pneumonia and tuberculosis bacteria that commonly claim the lives of people whose immune systems have been wrecked by HIV.
Doctors traditionally are opposed to long-term uses of antibiotics on the grounds that this can build resistance to the drug.
But the authors, led by Diana Gibb of Britain's Medical Research Council (MRC) said they found no evidence that the drug became less effective by the time the followup check was carried out.
In addition, the drug was very well tolerated by the children, and few were allergic to it.
They contend that the results are so emphatic that co-trimoxazole should be administered as a matter of course to all children in Africa who have been diagnosed with HIV.
The timing of this recommendation is important, as many African countries are revising their AIDS policies so that they can cope with wider distribution of anti-HIV drugs.
Of the 534 children who took part in the study, only five percent or so received antiretrovirals.
About 38 million people around the world have HIV, according to figures released in July by the UN agency UNAIDS.
Of that total, around 25 million live in sub-Saharan Africa, the world's poorest region.
11/18/2004 16:06 GMT - AFP