• Submitted by: lena campos
• Health and Medicine
• 08 / 16 / 2013

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Cuban researchers have reported "modest progress" in the search for more effective drugs with fewer side effects for HIV/AIDS treatment, local media said Thursday.

The director of the Pedro Kouri Institute of Tropical Medicine in Havana, Jorge Perez Avila, said one such drug was GMS, a potential therapeutic vaccine aimed at reducing viral replication in HIV-positive patients.

Perez said another potential drug TERAVAC HIV-1 designed to enhance the immune response of infected patients is currently in clinical trials.

Researchers need more time to determine whether these two drugs have the desired results, said Perez, adding there are still too many unknowns in the way the virus behaves to develop a definitive immunizing drug.

"There's still a long way to go ... but we have greater hope," he said.

The latest data shows that more than 8,000 HIV/AIDS patients in Cuba have been undergoing sustained antiretroviral therapy since 2007, with a 90 percent survival rate through 2012.