LONDON — A drug given to gout sufferers could reduce the cost of AIDS treatment by prolonging the effect of the drug AZT, the only licensed medicine for AIDS, a report in the medical journal The Lancet said today.

American researchers at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine in Maryland found that AZT taken in combination with the drug probenecid stays in the blood twice as long. This means that AZT doses can be taken every eight hours instead of every four.