HIV/AIDS study shows early treatment stops spread of deadly virus

(CBS/AP) WASHINGTON - Is early treatment the secret to reining in AIDS?

Maybe so. New research shows that treating people with HIV/AIDS before they are too sick dramatically reduces their chances of spreading the deadly virus to a sex partner.

The finding - from a nine-country study - confirms what scientists have long believed: HIV drugs don't just benefit the patients who take them, but also make those people less infectious. Patients treated early were a whopping 96 percent less likely to spread HIV to their uninfected partners.

The findings were so striking that the National Institutes of Health announced Thursday it was stopping the study four years ahead of schedule to get the word out.

The study may help answer a long-standing question: Given the high cost of antiviral drugs and their tendency to cause side effects, how early should patients start taking them? In the U.S., that's a case-by-case decision for patients whose immune systems so far are moderately damaged by HIV. In developing countries, patients tend to be sicker before treatment starts.

The study may change those guidelines by adding the promise of partner protection.

"It has less to do with a decision about what's good for you from a personal health standpoint than what is the extra added benefit from starting earlier, i.e., transmission, especially if you have a partner who's uninfected," said Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of NIH's National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, which oversaw the study.

Condoms still are crucial for protection, of course. All 1,763 couples in the study, where one partner had HIV and the other did not, were urged to use them.

The study randomly divided the couples. Among half, the HIV-infected partner immediately started medication. Among the other half, the infected partner delayed medication until their level of CD4 cells, a key measure of immune health, dropped below 250 or they caught other AIDS-related illnesses.

In 28 couples, the uninfected partner became infected with a strain of HIV that scientists could prove came from the originally infected partner. Only one of those infections was among the earlier-treated couples, Fauci said.