The purpose of this trial is to compare the effectiveness, safety and tolerability of TMC278 given at a dose of 25 mg once daily versus efavirenz (EFV) at a dose of 600 mg once daily, when combined with a fixed background regimen consisting of emtricitabine (FTC) + tenofovir disoproxil fumarate (TDF), in HIV-1 infected patients who have not yet taken any anti-HIV drugs. The following evaluations will be done: antiviral activity, immunologic changes, and viral geno-/phenotype evolution, relationship of Pharmacokinetics (PK) and PK/Pharmacodynamics, medical resource utilization and treatment adherence.

Over the past decade, anti-human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) drugs have been introduced sequentially for use in the clinic. Currently, patients are routinely being treated with 3 or 4 drug combinations including nucleoside/tide analogue reverse transcriptase inhibitors (NRTIs/NtRTIs), non-nucleoside reverse transcriptase inhibitors (NNRTIs), protease inhibitors (PIs), and/or fusion inhibitors. New potent antiretroviral (ARV) compounds that work in people whose HIV-1 virus is resistant to available drugs are urgently needed. This is a Phase III, randomized (study medication is assigned by chance), double-blind (neither the study physician nor the patient knows the name of the study assigned medication), double-dummy, active-controlled trial to compare the effectiveness, safety, and ability to tolerate TMC278 versus efavirenz (EFV). The study will last for 104 weeks which includes a screening period of 4 weeks, a 96-week treatment period, followed by a 4 week follow-up period. Patients will be randomly assigned to TMC278 or to efavirenz, either of these treatments will be in combination with two other anti-HIV drugs (2 NRTIs: emtricitabine (FTC) + tenofovir (TDF)). TDF/FTC will be administered as a fixed dose combination if available. The hypothesis to be provided in this study is that the investigational drug TMC278 will perform just like efavirenz (EFV) in terms of antiviral effectiveness (i.e., suppressing of the plasma viral load to a level < 50 HIV-1 RNA (ribonucleic acid) copies/mL) in ARV-naïve HIV-infected patients. During the trial, patients' health will be monitored by physical examination, interview to assess health and well being, and laboratory testing on blood and urine samples. Experimental Group: One tablet of TMC278 25 mg once daily plus one tablet of placebo once daily that looks just like efavirenz (EFV) plus tenofovir/emtricitabine; Control Group: One tablet of Placebo once daily that looks just like TMC278 plus EFV 600 mg once daily plus tenofovir/emtricitabine.

Inclusion Criteria:

• Patient with documented HIV-1 infection
• Patient has never been treated with a therapeutic HIV vaccine or an ARV drug prior to screening
• Patient's HIV-1 plasma viral load at screening is > 5,000 HIV-1 RNA copies/mL (assayed by RNA PCR standard specimen procedure)
• Patient's virus is sensitive to TDF and FTC
• Patient agrees not to start ART (antiretroviral treatment) before the baseline visit

Exclusion Criteria:

• Previous use of ANY ARV drug for ANY length of time
• Any documented evidence of NNRTI resistance associated mutations in patient's HIV
• Category C AIDS defining illness, except: stable Kaposi Sarcoma, wasting syndrome if not progressive
• Pneumocystis carinii pneumonia (PCP) that is considered not cured
• Active TB
• Allergy or hypersensitivity to study or background ARTs
• Specific grade 3 or 4 toxicity
• Kidney impairment: calculated creatinine clearance <50 ml/min