US researchers have highlighted the ability of herpes drug treatment acyclovir to lower the chance of HIV progressing in people with the condition, in some instances. The impact of the drug – said University of Washington scientists – could only be described as “modest”, but it represents both a low-cost and a straightforward way of prolonging good health in HIV patients.

Overall – the researchers’ study in this week’s Lancet medical journal reported – acyclovir induced a 16 per cent drop in HIV progression rates among the 3,000+ African patients assessed. All of these patients had HIV-1 – the type of HIV which affects the majority of those with the condition. Genital herpes is a linked condition, in the sense most HIV-1 patients have this also.

Acyclovir: Herpes Drug

While earlier assessments established a connection between herpes and HIV-1 – suppress one and there’s an effect on the other, too – no evidence had emerged before now that suppressing herpes with the drug acyclovir could actually put the brakes on HIV-1.

The trial that supported the study took place over 24 months and involved the patients being supplied either with 400mg of acyclovir two times a day, or a placebo instead. At the trial’s conclusion, 284 of the acyclovir patients had begun a course of HIV-1 drugs, had given anatomical signs that HIV-1 medication was required, or were no longer alive: 40 less than those on the dummy equivalent.

Acyclovir: HIV-1

Those behind the study stressed that the impact of acyclovir was likely to not be as great as established antiretroviral treatments, but suggested that patients with less advanced HIV might still benefit from its introduction. They added that unconnected studies had intimated that acyclovir was ineffective in preventing HIV-1 being transmitted.

"While the HIV disease ameliorating effect we have observed is modest, it could add one more tool to help people with HIV infection stay healthy for longer”, Doctor Jairam Lingappa – head researcher - explained.

HIV Treatment Update editor Gus Cairns told the BBC that the study represented a “positive result.”  “There are biological reasons to believe that treating people's herpes could make them less likely to acquire HIV...but results of trials testing the idea have been disappointing”, he said.

“Now at least we find that acyclovir, a very cheap, non-toxic and widely-available drug, can prolong the time some patients may be able to stay off the more expensive, and sometimes toxic, HIV drugs.”