Research on an HIV cure has come a long way since the first diagnosis of the virus back in the 80s. The major milestone so far is the invention of antiretroviral therapy which has changed the lives of millions of victims across the world by ensuring morbidity and mortality are prevented. However, ART is not a cure. Clinical and scientific research is now focused on finding the ultimate cure to flash out all the viruses including those that remain alive inside what is commonly referred to as HIV reservoirs in infected individuals such as the memory CD4 T cells that harbor the virus genomes that later produce the infectious virus upon T cell activation. In fact, such reservoirs are considered the primary obstacle to the development of a permanent cure for HIV despite the early development of effective combination ART in the mid-90s that raised a lot of hope for a cure. According to a controlled trial of ART, a remarkable reduction of CD4 cell count was recorded to as low as 200 per cubic millimeter.
Many scientific tests are being conducted on people living with HIV to see if a promising cure can be found. Once the cure is found, it will be great news for living with the virus and bearing high costs in purchasing ARV drugs and help get rid of stockout issues witnessed from time to time. Meanwhile, researchers are also looking forward to developing a therapeutic HIV vaccine that will slow down the replication and progression of the virus and hopefully result in low or undetectable levels of HIV without using daily ARVs. This research is already underway in South Africa, and soon we hope to get the results.
Remarkable progress
It is true that scientific researchers are inching closer to finding the real cure for HIV. With the latest breakthrough said to be the most promising where some patients have been cured using the new vaccine-based treatment. The vaccine-based treatment has successfully helped to suppress the virus to very low levels that the virus cannot be detected or transmitted to another person. It is indicated that upon trials on 24 patients, the virus was undetectable in 5 patients and researchers say the immune system stopped the spread. This, of course, is encouraging news for those that are looking forward to the development of a permanent cure for HIV that will cut down the cost, which runs into billions of money a year concerning purchasing ARVs. According to WebMD, an HIV experimental vaccine managed to protect animals from different strains of HIV and human trials expected to commence probably in 2019. According to the researchers, the vaccine is targeted to trigger antibody production that will flash out the virus.
The Berlin Patient
About ten years ago, an HIV patient was cured after undergoing a bone marrow transplant from a naturally HIV resistant donor. Since then the patient has not used ARV drugs. By then, the world went nuts believing a cure had finally been found. However, this has not been the case to date.
This and many other research studies give hope that probably by the year 2020 a cure will be found. The primary focus now, however, is finding a solution to the replication of the virus to produce more copies once the ARV drugs have managed to reduce the CD4 cell count. Many researchers believe this could be the breakthrough in the medical industry that will finally see the world getting its functional cure for HIV.
The therapies available currently help in inhibiting the formation of new viruses but don’t work on the reservoirs. This means that once a patient stops the medication, the virus comes back within a couple of days. However, a new drug known as ABX464 has proved to be the first to reduce the HIV reservoir that is not only safe but also tolerable. We may not be there yet, but there seems to be a light at the end of the tunnel. Let’s keep our hopes high!
References:
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/7489410
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/9287227
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4992607/
https://www.webmd.com/hiv-aids/news/20180606/human-trials-set-for-experimental-hiv-vaccine
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/m/pubmed/28507108/?i=3&from=ABX464
https://labiotech.eu/hiv-cure-2020-research-review/
https://observer.ug/news/headlines/57864-researchers-begin-search-for-hiv-cure.html
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4731192/
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