VIC: Australians have access to powerful new anti HIV drug

AAP General News (Australia)
08-17-1999
VIC: Australians have access to powerful new anti HIV drug

By Sarah Timms

MELBOURNE, Aug 17 AAP - Australians with HIV now have access to a powerful new drug to
help fight their chronic condition more easily.

Abacavir is a new anti-retroviral drug which can be used combined with other powerful drugs
to fight HIV.

Ithas been available in Australia since late last year through compassionate access
programs and the official launch today heralds its wider access.

It has been approved by the federal government and is available through hospital pharmacies
free-of-charge as it is listed as a drug relating to a life-threatening condition.

Victorian-based People Living with HIV/AIDS president John Daye said one of the drug's
great merits was its dosage of only two tablets a day.

"Adherence is a really important issue with anti-retrovirals because if people miss doses
or go without it in some way, it is exactly when those blood levels drop that viral resistence
develops," Mr Daye told AAP.

"So having two tablets a day is a lot easier than taking six or eight tablets three times a
day with some other drugs."

The twice-daily dose also helped people manage their condition outside the workplace by
enabling them to take the tablet before and after work, he added.

"People do like to have that discretion and be able to conduct their lives and treat their
medical condition without it being exposed to everybody else."

It was also very important in this age of drug resistance that a drug such as Abacavir had
such potent activity in combination with other drugs, he said.

"For a lot of people who have been around for a long time and been treated with a lot of
other drugs, it is a new option," he said.

He estimated that about 800 people were taking the drug in Australia.

At the end of 1998, almost 20,000 Australians had been diagnosed with HIV, more than 8,000
with AIDS and more than 5,500 had died as a result of AIDS.

HIV/AIDS Treatment Clinic Director at the Northwestern Memorial Hospital in Chicago in the
United States, Professor Robert Murphy, said tolerance levels for the drug were very high,
with only about three to five per cent of patients having an adverse reaction.

Prof Murphy told AAP the drug had some favourable qualities including entering the brain,
crossing the placenta and being easy to take twice a day.

Professor of Medicine at the University of New South Wales David Cooper cautioned that it
was one of the most potent HIV drugs and in some cases people had died after serious reactions
to it.

"So it becomes an education effort amongst doctors and patients to be aware of the reaction
and to treat it appropriately," Prof Cooper told AAP.

AAP st/jlw/rsm

KEYWORD: HIV DRUG

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