HIV positive patients in the US will soon be able to take the first single-pill, once-a-day treatment.
Atripla, which has just been approved by the Food and Drug Administration in America, combines three drugs in a "cocktail" therapy that can be swallowed in one dose.
The trio of medicines it comprises are already used as one of the most widelyprescribed treatments for HIV/Aids.
Their makers, Gilead, Bristol-Myers Squibb and Merck, will now try to get approval to sell the pill outside the US.
About 40 million people worldwide, including one million Americans, are HIV positive. Each year, roughly five million people are infected with HIV and three million die from Aids.
