A 44-year-old British man might be the first person who could be soon cured from HIV by a new form of treatment.
He is currently the one of 50 patients who are undergoing the new treatment and also the first one who’s body is responding very positively to it.
Scientists from five UK universities such as Cambridge University, Oxford University, University College London, Imperial College London and King’s College London are all involved in this trial treatment.
The HIV virus is very difficult to treat because it is targeting the core of the immune system, splicing itself into the DNA of T-cells, so that they can’t detect the virus and start ignoring the disease. The T-cells also turn into viral factories who are reproducing and helping the virus to develop.
Current pharmaceuticals for treating the virus are called anti-retroviral therapies (Art) but they can’t detect the infected dormant T-cells and can’t clean the body of the virus.
This new therapy is working in two stages. The vaccine is helping the body to recognize the HIV infected cells and to clear them out and also the new drug Vorinostat is activating the dormant T-cells so the immune system can detect them.
Managing director of the National Institute for Health Research Office for Clinical Research Infrastructure Mark Samuels told The Sunday Times:
”This is one of the first serious attempts at a full cure for HIV. We are exploring the real possibility of curing HIV. This is a huge challenge and it’s still early days but the progress has been remarkable.”
It was also reported on recent tests that the virus is completely undetectable in this 44-year-old man’s blood. It could possibly be the result of standard HIV treatment but if the dormant cells end up being cleared too – then this could be the first official cure. However, the final results of the trial won’t be published in 2018.
At the end of 2015, there were approximately 36.7 million people infected with HIV/AIDS. There are around 100,000 people in the UK with the virus, in which 17 percent are not aware that they have it.
This trial is very promising and could be a major breakthrough in the field of medicine, not only for Britain but for the whole world.
”This therapy is specifically designed to clear the body of all HIV viruses, including dormant ones. It has worked in the laboratory and there is good evidence it will work in humans too, but we must stress we are still a long way from any actual therapy.”
”We will continue with medical tests for the next five years and at the moment we are not recommending stopping Art but in the future depending on the test results we may explore this.”