An experimental anti-viral drug has dramatically suppressed an AIDS-like virus in infant monkeys with none of the side effects associated with the commonly used drug AZT, according to scientists at the University of California, Davis. As a result of the UC Davis study, drug manufacturer Gilead Sciences has begun human clinical trials with the drug -- known as PMPA -- at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine and UC San Francisco. Researchers hope the drug eventually will prove effective in treating infants and adults infected with the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV). Results of the UC Davis drug trial are reported in the November issue of Antimicrobial Agents and Chemotherapy by virologists Koen Van Rompay and Marta Marthas of the UC Davis-based California Regional Primate Research Center. "Current treatments have significantly reduced HIV infection in infants, and studies such as this raise our hopes that we can have a dramatic impact on transmission of HIV from mothers to infants," said Dr. Art Ammann of the Pediatric AIDS Foundation. "Our hope is that PMPA will bring HIV infection in the United States down to less than 100 babies each year, nearly eradicating the disease among infants." Worldwide, 250,000 to 350,000 HIV-infected babies are born annually, according to the Pediatric AIDS Foundation, which helped fund the UC Davis study.