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The article reports on a breakthrough regarding a possible cure for AIDS unveiled by Dr. Gero Hütter. The physician executed a bone marrow transplant to a 42-year-old AIDS patient to treat his leukemia. After 2 years, his blood does not exhibit any virus. The AIDS drug antiretrovirals inhibit the virus from reproducing but has to be taken for life and are expensive. Dr. Hutter utilized a donor who have a CCR5 mutation from both parents to make the patient immune to HIV in theory.

Focuses on a cost study conducted by South Africa's health and finance ministries which investigated the affordability of anti-AIDS drugs and the feasibility of a nationwide rollout.

Reports on experimental treatments for HIV and AIDS. How certain drugs work; Details on the drugs which were revealed at the Ninth Conference on Retroviruses and Opportunistic Infections; Drugs from companies such as Merck & Co., Tibotec-Virco, Pfizer, and others.

Reports that the humanitarian group, Doctors Without Borders had defied South African patent law by importing inexpensive generic AIDS drugs manufactured in Brazil for use in a township clinic outside of Capetown.

Reports on human testing of the controversial AIDS drub Virodene in countries in Africa. Criticism that the drug is not effective; How the drug's creator Michelle Olga Patricia Visser has been testing the drug in countries by either going around public-health regulations or operating where regulatory approval was not required; Lack of evidence that the drug works.

Discusses the effort of Glaxo Wellcome PLC to block competition for its anti-AIDS drug Combivir in Ghana. Comments from Christopher Kiige of the African Regional Industrial Property Organization; HIV infections in sub-Saharan Africa; Agreement on pricing among pharmaceutical companies.

Reports on an AIDS treatment study that allows the human immune system to fight off the virus. Study by Bruce Walker at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston, where recently infected HIV patients were treated with drugs and then stopped using them; Opinion that this study shows an HIV vaccine might be possible; Appearance of the study in the September 2000 edition of 'Nature.'