In an attempt to find answers on how to better tackle the AIDS epidemic and the role of so-called antiretroviral drugs, scientists have developed a computer modelling to project what would happen if everyone over 15 was tested every year, and found that such tests followed by immediate treatment could cut the number of people developing the disease by up to 95 percent within 10 years.

“The concept of antiretroviral treatment for HIV prevention is a very important, urgent thing to examine,” lead author of the study Kevin De Cock, director of HIV/AIDS for the World Health Organization in Geneva said.

More exactly, the researchers involved in the study used a computer model to project what would happen in a South African community if everyone was tested for HIV once a year and started on retroviral therapy immediately after a positive diagnosis, even though they appeared to be healthy. The results were surprising.

“We found a 95 percent reduction incidence or new HIV cases in about 10 years time after implementation of the program. Or another way to look at that is that by about 2050, the prevalence or the number of people living with HIV would be less than one percent,” Reuben Granich of the World Health Organization's Department of HIV/AIDS in Geneva, who was also involved in the study, said.

The AIDS virus infects an estimated 33 million people globally, mostly in sub-Saharan Africa, and has killed 25 million. There is no cure for it, but the existing drugs allow HIV patients to lead a nearly normal life.

However, giving antiretroviral drugs to all HIV sufferers seems impossible for some researchers especially in the developing country. About 3 million people globally had received the drug cocktails by the end of 2007, far short of the estimated 6.7 million infected people still in need of treatment, the researchers said.

The study was published in the journal The Lancet.