Small studies offer hope in search for a cure, AIDS conference told
Source: AFP |
July 4, 2013, Thursday
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THE results from several small trials presented at an AIDS conference yesterday provides encouraging news in the quest for a cure, scientists said.
Giving an update in an eagerly-followed trial, researchers said an HIV-positive infant in Mississippi who was put on a course of antiretroviral drugs within a few days of birth had remained free of the AIDS virus 15 months after treatment stopped.
In Boston, two HIV-positive men who were given bone-marrow transplants for cancer also had no detectable virus 15 weeks and seven weeks respectively after stopping AIDS drugs, a separate team reported.
Both research projects are at an early stage and should not be taken as a sign that a cure for the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) is around the corner, researchers cautioned at a world forum of AIDS scientists in Kuala Lumpur.
Even so, they said it strengthens the motivation for pursuing the once-unthinkable goal of eradicating HIV or repressing it without daily drugs.
"I don't actually want to use the cure word in this situation," said Timothy Henrich, from the Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston, Massachusetts, of the bone-marrow study he is co-leading.
"But what I can say is that if these patients are able to stay without detectable HIV for a year, maybe a year and a half, after we stop treatment, then the chances of the virus coming back are very small."
Introduced in 1996, a cocktail of antiretroviral drugs is a lifeline to millions with HIV.
But if the drugs are stopped, the virus rebounds from "reservoirs" among old cells in the blood stream and body tissue. It then renews its attack on the immune system.
Deborah Persaud, heading the Mississippi investigation, said early treatment of newborns appears to offer the best hope of attacking the virus before it gets established.
An estimated 34 million people are infected with HIV worldwide, and about 1.8 million die each year.
The virus was first identified in 1981 and was essentially a death sentence until the advent of antiretrovirals.
Three years ago, Nobel-winning French researcher Francoise Barre-Sinoussi launched a campaign for a cure ? a hope bolstered by the case of a Berlin man whose HIV-count was undetectable after a bone-marrow transplant for leukemia.
In his case, the transplanted cells had a genetic variant which thwarted HIV's attempts to latch on to the cell's surface and then penetrate it.
The two Boston patients did not have this mutation. But they were kept on antiretrovirals until the donor cells were fully established, and this may have helped, suggested Henrich.
In two other studies at the International AIDS Society conference, French researchers said treatment as soon as possible after diagnosis gave the best chance of reviving immune systems.
Giving an update in an eagerly-followed trial, researchers said an HIV-positive infant in Mississippi who was put on a course of antiretroviral drugs within a few days of birth had remained free of the AIDS virus 15 months after treatment stopped.
In Boston, two HIV-positive men who were given bone-marrow transplants for cancer also had no detectable virus 15 weeks and seven weeks respectively after stopping AIDS drugs, a separate team reported.
Both research projects are at an early stage and should not be taken as a sign that a cure for the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) is around the corner, researchers cautioned at a world forum of AIDS scientists in Kuala Lumpur.
Even so, they said it strengthens the motivation for pursuing the once-unthinkable goal of eradicating HIV or repressing it without daily drugs.
"I don't actually want to use the cure word in this situation," said Timothy Henrich, from the Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston, Massachusetts, of the bone-marrow study he is co-leading.
"But what I can say is that if these patients are able to stay without detectable HIV for a year, maybe a year and a half, after we stop treatment, then the chances of the virus coming back are very small."
Introduced in 1996, a cocktail of antiretroviral drugs is a lifeline to millions with HIV.
But if the drugs are stopped, the virus rebounds from "reservoirs" among old cells in the blood stream and body tissue. It then renews its attack on the immune system.
Deborah Persaud, heading the Mississippi investigation, said early treatment of newborns appears to offer the best hope of attacking the virus before it gets established.
An estimated 34 million people are infected with HIV worldwide, and about 1.8 million die each year.
The virus was first identified in 1981 and was essentially a death sentence until the advent of antiretrovirals.
Three years ago, Nobel-winning French researcher Francoise Barre-Sinoussi launched a campaign for a cure ? a hope bolstered by the case of a Berlin man whose HIV-count was undetectable after a bone-marrow transplant for leukemia.
In his case, the transplanted cells had a genetic variant which thwarted HIV's attempts to latch on to the cell's surface and then penetrate it.
The two Boston patients did not have this mutation. But they were kept on antiretrovirals until the donor cells were fully established, and this may have helped, suggested Henrich.
In two other studies at the International AIDS Society conference, French researchers said treatment as soon as possible after diagnosis gave the best chance of reviving immune systems.
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