1.7 million people contracted HIV last year, of which more than 40 million live with it: UN (representational)
Paris:
An HIV-positive man in remission may be the first patient to effectively cure the disease without the need for a bone marrow transplant, researchers in a potential breakthrough announced on Tuesday.
HIV affects tens of millions of people around the world and although the disease is no longer the automatic death penalty it once was, patients still have to take medicine for life.
In recent years, two men – known as the patients “Berlin” and “London” – appear to have been cured of the disease after undergoing a high-risk bone marrow transplant to treat cancer.
Now, an international team of researchers believes they may have a third patient who no longer shows signs of infection after following a different medication regimen.
The patient, a 34-year-old unnamed Brazilian, was diagnosed with HIV in 2012.
As part of the study, he received several powerful antiviral drugs, including maraviroc and dolutegravir, to see if they could help him rid the virus of his body.
He has now spent over 57 weeks without HIV treatment and continues to test negative for HIV antibodies.
Ricardo Diaz, an infectious disease expert at the University of Sao Paulo, said the patient could be considered free from the disease.
“The importance for me is that we had a patient who was on treatment and he is now controlling the virus without treatment,” he told AFP.
“We are unable to detect the virus and it loses the specific response to the virus – if you don’t have an antibody, you don’t have an antigen.”
– “Provocative” findings –
Diaz’s findings were published as part of the first fully virtual International AIDS Conference held online this year due to the coronavirus pandemic.
The UN said on Monday that 1.7 million people contracted HIV last year and that there are now more than 40 million people living with it.
Diaz said the team’s treatment method, which requires further research, is a more ethical route for seriously ill people living with HIV than the bone marrow transplant route.
“They come with a high death rate, there have been a series of patients who have died from the procedures or it has not worked,” he said.
Sharon Lewin, co-chair of the International AIDS Society Towards HIV Treatment Initiative and director of the Doherty Institute for Infection and Immunity in Melbourne, said Diaz’s findings were “very interesting”.
However, it issued a cautionary note, due to the limitations of the study.
She noted that the antibody test in Brazilian patients had become weaker over time – suggesting a decrease in the immune response.
“It is very unusual to see a person outside of antivirals,” she said.
“Patients from Berlin and London may be the only exceptions. This very challenging data requires further analysis.”
(With the exception of the title, this story was not edited by GalacticGaming staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)
