Posts
International experts on Thursday
called for a renewed effort to cure AIDS, publishing a seven-step scientific
strategy and introducing it at a press conference in Washington. The US capital
is hosting next week’s 19th International AIDS Conference, which is expected to
attract 25,000 scientists and advocates from around the world.
The strategy focuses on key issues
including the reservoirs where HIV hides inside the body, and the few people
who seem to have some natural resistance to the virus. The approaches being
investigated - including gene therapy, immune treatments, and vaccines - would
likely be most effective in combination with each other and antiretroviral
therapy (ARVs).
Experts have lauded the world’s
progress against the disease, with 8 million people in poor countries now
receiving ARVs, and AIDS-related mortality falling in much of the world.
Even so, 34 million people worldwide
are infected, and the cost of their treatment “is overwhelming many
organizations and public health systems,” wrote scientists from the
International AIDS Society. “It is estimated that for every HIV-infected person
who starts antiretroviral therapy, two individuals are newly infected with HIV;
this is clearly unsustainable.”
“The science has been telling us for
some time now that achieving a cure for HIV infection could be a realistic
possibility,” said Francoise Barre-Sinoussi, the co-discoverer of HIV and
director of the regulation of retroviral infections unit at the Institut
Pasteur in Paris. “The time is right to take the opportunity to try and develop
an HIV cure.” She added, however, that the search for a cure should not be
funded by cutting current prevention and treatment efforts.
Among promising developments is the
case of Timothy Brown. The US leukemia patient received a stem cell transplant
from an HIV-resistant donor and continues to appear free of disease years
later. Also of note: the “Visconti cohort,” a group of HIV-infected patients in
France who began treatment early and were able to stop it without the infection
returning.
“Towards an HIV Cure: A Global
Scientific Strategy” was published in Nature Reviews Immunology
(doi:10.1038/nri3262); “Towards a Cure for HIV” was published in Nature
(doi:10.1038/487293a).
The Friends of AIDS Foundation is
dedicated to enhancing the quality of life for HIV positive individuals and
empowering people to make healthy choices to prevent the spread of the HIV
virus. To learn more about The Friends of AIDS Foundation, please visit: http://www.friendsofaids.org.
TOGETHER WE REMAIN STRONG!
