The World Health Organisation has issued a serious warning over a major HIV drug treatment which is linked to what it terms "long-term, irreversible" adverse drug reactions. The drug in question, Stavudine, is a NARTI (Nucleoside Analog Reverse Transcriptase Inhibitor) which is used to treat patients with HIV. According to the WHO, however, it is capable of causing "disabling and disfiguring" conditions and, as such, it should be withdrawn from worldwide use.

The market name for Stavudine (alternatively called d4T) - produced by American drug manufacturing firm Bristol-Myers Squibb - is Zerit, while a number of Indian drug makers (Cipla and Aurobindo Pharma among them) produce generic variants.

Stavudine: HIV Treatment

With widespread availability in undeveloped nations, Stavudine represents a comparatively cheap and straightforward HIV treatment, the WHO stressed. However, it can be associated with a vicious nerve condition which produces either a hand/foot-based burning sensation, or loss of sensation in the same areas. The same drug also triggers another side effect - lipoatrophy (the loss of fat from specific areas of the body).

Stavudine Side Effects

As a result of these Stavudine side effects, the organisation asserted, "countries [should] progressively phase out the use of Stavudine as a preferred first-line therapy option and move to less toxic alternatives such as Zidovudine [AZT] or Tenofovir [TDF] - treatments which represent "equally effective alternatives."

The number of people around the world who are prescribed some form of antiretroviral drug stands at more than 4m. Of these, approximately 50 per cent take Stavudine within a wider cocktail of drugs - 30 per cent below the number that were taking it three years ago, when the WHO first intervened to point out its side effects.

In related news, the WHO has also encouraged HIV patients to begin drug treatment programmes at an earlier stage in order to prolong life expectancy. "The new recommendations are based on a solid body of evidence indicating that rates of death, morbidity and HIV and tuberculosis transmissions are all reduced by starting treatment earlier", it said, adding: "This prolongs and improves quality of life."

It is thought that the global total of AIDs-infected people stands at some 33 million, of which over 60 per cent live in African nations. This is according to recent data issued by the United Nations.