Since treatment reduces viral load, it should, in theory, make those being treated less infectious.
And only 21% of black Americans have a suppressed viral load, the key health marker for HIV treatment.
However, he said the study did not question the value of viral load measurements for assessing how well antiretroviral therapy was working.
Drugs can reduce it to some extent, by bringing people's viral load down to the point where they will not pass on the disease.
First, he analysed the samples to find their viral load (the number of virus particles per cubic centimetre) and the subtype of virus involved.
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Viral loads of the patients remained stable or decreased during the nine month trial - and one subject showed a sustained dramatic decrease in viral load.
Prof Jonathan Weber, from Imperial College London, said those on the 48-week regime "end up with much higher CD4 cell count and a much lower viral load".
The researchers used a sophisticated statistical modeling technique to assess viral load and CD4 cell loss in more than 2, 800 patients with HIV who were not receiving treatment.
Roche, which already sells pegylated interferon (Pegasys) and ribavirin (Copegus), announced in May that in a small early-stage trial its polymerase inhibitor was effective in significantly reducing the viral load.
Edwin Bernard, editor of AIDS Treatment Update, said it was known that CD4 decline varied enormously between people with a similar viral load, and that treatment guidelines had begun to play down the importance of the measure as a diagnostic tool.
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