Patients on a strict regimen of combination AIDS treatment drugs, found beneficial by many, may likely be taking these particular drugs on a rigorous schedule for the foreseeable future or, even, for remainder of their lives. Such are the findings of the renowned Dr. David Ho, an author of new research studies and a prominent researcher at Manhattan's Aaron Diamond Research Center.

While this news may be unnerving to some, Dr. Ho's research also holds high a torch of hope, namely that the living HIV infected bodies he and his team studied received the combination drugs over lengthy periods— 2 years—without giving any signs of rejecting them.

"It should be a motivation for patients to carry on and adhere closely to their regimen," Ho said. The regimen is costly, however.

The virus, contrary to earlier reports, is not killed by the new combination therapy. Instead, it hides, lurking in cells for years in exceedingly tiny forms.

Thus, hopes have been dashed—for the time being-- that combination therapy patients may someday be able to leave off from the strict drug scheduling required of them at present.

Infected cells live on in a restful state. They give shelter to the virus, but no new replicas of the virus are made while therapy persists. The AIDS virus itself becomes dormant.

Prior to Ho's recent announcement, many had hoped that HIV, which, in the bodies of many had fallen to undetectable levels, had been eliminated altogether.

Research was conducted with the assistance of many whose bloodstream tested altogether free of the virus. Ho's team became the first to discover that there was HIV infection in hidden cells even though the patient has tested negative. Ho was also the first to document the fact that the body does not become resistant to the medicines.

Dr. Joel Gallant, of Johns Hopkins University, said, "There's a mistaken notion that the drugs have a certain life span and then run out of steam. It's probably the opposite. The longer people remain on the treatment, the longer they continue to do well."

This is an astounding discovery, if true. But it is not true for all HIV-positive patients, many of whom do not respond well to the long-term therapies.

Dr. Jerome Groopman, a Harvard expert on AIDS, questions Ho's findings. He says that the much vaunted absence of any resistance by the body to drugs is not universal, and, in fact, is only likely to occur in approximately 50% of the patients studied outside of official HIV research projects.

The University of California's Dr. Steven Deaks, however, concurs with Dr. Ho. Calling Dr. Ho's studies "critical milestones", Deaks said, "They confirm what we suspected, which is that used appropriately, these drugs probably suppress viral replication to close to zero.

"This work confirms our initial hope that these drugs will work for years and years…It implies that if you do well during the first several months of therapy, you'll do well for the next 50 years."