Source: CBC News
Published: Monday, July 30, 2007 | 5:29 PM ET
Canadian Press: KRISTINE OWRAM
TORONTO (CP) - Offenders who are admitted to Ontario remand facilities are 11 times more likely to be infected with HIV and 22 times more likely to be infected with hepatitis C than members of the general population - numbers that point to the need for better education and preventive measures among inmates, a new study suggests.
The study, published in the Canadian Medical Association Journal, indicates injection drug use is by far the most important risk factor in the transmission of HIV and hepatitis C among inmates of Ontario's remand facilities.
"This shows the importance of education, because in some cases, there were people who knew they were infected and still were engaging in behaviours that would transmit the infection," said Liviana Calzavara, one of the authors of the study. Calzavara, who is deputy director of the HIV Social, Behavioural and Epidemiological Studies Unit at the University of Toronto's department of public health sciences, added that one-third of the inmates who tested positive for hepatitis C weren't aware they were infected. "This study draws attention to issues around education for individuals in terms of how to avoid it, how to avoid transmitting it to others and treatment that is available that would limit the health effects," she said.
This is particularly important because inmates tend to spend relatively short periods of time in remand centres - an average of 32 days - before moving on to somewhere else, said Calzavara. The study found that 56,000 adult and young offenders are admitted to remand facilities in Ontario each year, where they await the outcome of legal proceedings, serve sentences under 60 days, or await transfer to provincial or federal jails. This means there are significant opportunities for transmission of diseases to other populations through high-risk behaviours such as injection drug use or unsafe sex, said Calzavara.
Click here to read the complete article.
The study published in the Canadian Medical Association Journal is available HERE.
Tuesday, July 31, 2007
Monday, July 30, 2007
China bans AIDS rights meeting, group says
Source: Reuters
BEIJING, July 29 (Reuters) - China has banned AIDS activists from holding a meeting on the rights of people with the disease, one of the organisers said on Sunday, citing official fears over foreign involvement in the sensitive subject.
The conference would have brought together 50 Chinese and foreign experts and activists to discuss how to press the legal rights of people with HIV/AIDS.
But government authorities told the New York-based Asia Catalyst group to cancel the meeting planned for early August in Guangzhou near Hong Kong in the south, said Sara Davis, one of the organisers.
"Authorities informed us that the combination of AIDS, law and foreigners was too sensitive," Davis told Reuters. There were no plans to reschedule the meeting, she said.
Phone calls to government spokesmen in Guangzhou and Beijing were not answered on Sunday.
China has become increasingly open about AIDS in recent years, facing up to an epidemic once stigmatised as a disease of the West.
The nation had 203,527 officially registered cases of HIV/AIDS by the end of April, up from 183,733 at the end of October 2006. Of the latest figure, 52,480 had progressed to full-blown AIDS. But the United Nations estimates the true number of HIV/AIDS cases in the country to be around 650,000.
Nowadays, Beijing backs campaigns to educate citizens on avoiding infection, and victims infected through reckless commercial blood collection in rural Henan province have been given free medicines. But officials in the one-party state remain wary of local activists and foreign groups pressing legal claims of infected citizens or raising official complicity in the spread of the disease. Henan has informally blocked patients from suing officials over tainted blood.
The meeting co-organised with China Orchid AIDS Project, a Beijing-based group, had invited several experts from South Africa, India, the United States, Canada and Thailand. Planned topics included discrimination, blood safety and setting up a legal aid center for people with HIV/AIDS.
"Protecting legal rights is key to any successful fight against AIDS," said Davis in an emailed statement about the cancellation. "China has passed laws protecting those rights, and people with AIDS need assistance in order to exercise them."
In May, China barred a prominent AIDS and environmental activist couple from leaving the country, accusing them of endangering national security. Earlier in the year, Henan officials tried to stop Gao Yaojie -- a doctor who helped expose the rural AIDS epidemic there -- from going to Washington to collect a human rights award. They let her go after an international outcry.
BEIJING, July 29 (Reuters) - China has banned AIDS activists from holding a meeting on the rights of people with the disease, one of the organisers said on Sunday, citing official fears over foreign involvement in the sensitive subject.
The conference would have brought together 50 Chinese and foreign experts and activists to discuss how to press the legal rights of people with HIV/AIDS.
But government authorities told the New York-based Asia Catalyst group to cancel the meeting planned for early August in Guangzhou near Hong Kong in the south, said Sara Davis, one of the organisers.
"Authorities informed us that the combination of AIDS, law and foreigners was too sensitive," Davis told Reuters. There were no plans to reschedule the meeting, she said.
Phone calls to government spokesmen in Guangzhou and Beijing were not answered on Sunday.
China has become increasingly open about AIDS in recent years, facing up to an epidemic once stigmatised as a disease of the West.
The nation had 203,527 officially registered cases of HIV/AIDS by the end of April, up from 183,733 at the end of October 2006. Of the latest figure, 52,480 had progressed to full-blown AIDS. But the United Nations estimates the true number of HIV/AIDS cases in the country to be around 650,000.
Nowadays, Beijing backs campaigns to educate citizens on avoiding infection, and victims infected through reckless commercial blood collection in rural Henan province have been given free medicines. But officials in the one-party state remain wary of local activists and foreign groups pressing legal claims of infected citizens or raising official complicity in the spread of the disease. Henan has informally blocked patients from suing officials over tainted blood.
The meeting co-organised with China Orchid AIDS Project, a Beijing-based group, had invited several experts from South Africa, India, the United States, Canada and Thailand. Planned topics included discrimination, blood safety and setting up a legal aid center for people with HIV/AIDS.
"Protecting legal rights is key to any successful fight against AIDS," said Davis in an emailed statement about the cancellation. "China has passed laws protecting those rights, and people with AIDS need assistance in order to exercise them."
In May, China barred a prominent AIDS and environmental activist couple from leaving the country, accusing them of endangering national security. Earlier in the year, Henan officials tried to stop Gao Yaojie -- a doctor who helped expose the rural AIDS epidemic there -- from going to Washington to collect a human rights award. They let her go after an international outcry.
Wednesday, July 25, 2007
Early treatment of HIV-infected infants with ART significantly reduces mortality
Source: AIDSMAP
Theo Smart, Wednesday, July 25, 2007
Treating HIV-infected infants with antiretroviral therapy (ART) as early as possible, within the first six to 12 weeks of life — rather than waiting until they show signs of immunological or clinical deterioration — dramatically decreases their risk of early death, according to findings from the Children with HIV Early Antiretroviral Therapy (CHER) trial, a South African study presented today at a late-breaker session of the 4th International AIDS Society Conference on HIV Treatment and Pathogenesis in Sydney.
“Starting ART before 12 weeks of age reduces early mortality by 75%,” said Dr Avy Violari of the University of the Witwatersrand in Johannesburg, who, along with Dr Marc Cotton from Cape Town, led the study.
After only 32 weeks of follow-up, the difference between early and deferred treatment was so profound that the study’s Data and Safety Monitoring Board (DSMB) called for the deferred ART arm of the study to be terminated, and urged that infants who weren’t already on treatment “should be urgently recalled and assessed for ART.”
Click here to read the article.
Theo Smart, Wednesday, July 25, 2007
Treating HIV-infected infants with antiretroviral therapy (ART) as early as possible, within the first six to 12 weeks of life — rather than waiting until they show signs of immunological or clinical deterioration — dramatically decreases their risk of early death, according to findings from the Children with HIV Early Antiretroviral Therapy (CHER) trial, a South African study presented today at a late-breaker session of the 4th International AIDS Society Conference on HIV Treatment and Pathogenesis in Sydney.
“Starting ART before 12 weeks of age reduces early mortality by 75%,” said Dr Avy Violari of the University of the Witwatersrand in Johannesburg, who, along with Dr Marc Cotton from Cape Town, led the study.
After only 32 weeks of follow-up, the difference between early and deferred treatment was so profound that the study’s Data and Safety Monitoring Board (DSMB) called for the deferred ART arm of the study to be terminated, and urged that infants who weren’t already on treatment “should be urgently recalled and assessed for ART.”
Click here to read the article.
Zimbabwe: Scientists Start Human Trials of Revolutionary HIV Treatment
Source: AllAfrica (Published in The Herald - Harare)
25 July 2007
SYDNEY.
Scientists have begun human trials of a revolutionary HIV treatment that genetically modifies people's cells to halt the virus, a conference of international experts in Sydney was yesterday. US professor John Rossi said the world-first trials began recently at the City of Hope hospital in California, the culmination of research that began in the early 1990s.
"We have already enrolled our first patient, who will be infused with his own genetically modified blood stem cells and we will enrol four more patients after him," said Rossi, the head of the hospital's molecular biology division.
The process, known as intra-cellular immunity, involves changing the genetic information in the human cells, known as T-cells, that the HIV virus normally locks into and infects before replicating and spreading. A piece of genetic material is introduced into the cells that makes then recognise HIV as a threat, stimulating the body's natural cellular defence mechanism to prevent the HIV cell from replicating.
"Our approach has been to take blood stem cells and T-cells out of patients that are HIV infected and introduce into these cells genes that produce products that inhibit HIV replication," Rossi told the International Aids Society conference in Sydney. "This would be long-term, this is a permanent modification of these cells, so that as long as these cells persist in the patient, they will have resistance to the HIV infection."
Rossi said the ultimate goal of the research was to either completely control the HIV virus or reduce its presence in patients to such an extent that they needed fewer drugs to survive.
"It's a landmark trial in many ways and we're very excited about being the first people in the world to do this," he said.
25 July 2007
SYDNEY.
Scientists have begun human trials of a revolutionary HIV treatment that genetically modifies people's cells to halt the virus, a conference of international experts in Sydney was yesterday. US professor John Rossi said the world-first trials began recently at the City of Hope hospital in California, the culmination of research that began in the early 1990s.
"We have already enrolled our first patient, who will be infused with his own genetically modified blood stem cells and we will enrol four more patients after him," said Rossi, the head of the hospital's molecular biology division.
The process, known as intra-cellular immunity, involves changing the genetic information in the human cells, known as T-cells, that the HIV virus normally locks into and infects before replicating and spreading. A piece of genetic material is introduced into the cells that makes then recognise HIV as a threat, stimulating the body's natural cellular defence mechanism to prevent the HIV cell from replicating.
"Our approach has been to take blood stem cells and T-cells out of patients that are HIV infected and introduce into these cells genes that produce products that inhibit HIV replication," Rossi told the International Aids Society conference in Sydney. "This would be long-term, this is a permanent modification of these cells, so that as long as these cells persist in the patient, they will have resistance to the HIV infection."
Rossi said the ultimate goal of the research was to either completely control the HIV virus or reduce its presence in patients to such an extent that they needed fewer drugs to survive.
"It's a landmark trial in many ways and we're very excited about being the first people in the world to do this," he said.
Tuesday, July 24, 2007
Fighting Drug Resistance In Hepatitis C Virus
Aource: Science Daily
Researchers at McGill University have found a clue in developing new drug candidates to fight the hepatitis C virus (HCV) by identifying a defence mechanism in the virus similar to resistance found in HIV.
“If you understand the biochemical mechanisms of drug resistance, you may be able to develop drugs in the test tube that are more capable of doing their job in the clinic,” says Dr. Matthias Götte, an associate professor in the Department of Microbiology & Immunology at McGill and a recipient of a national career award from the Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR). Antiviral therapies commonly employ inhibitors, compounds that block enzymes from reproducing the virus. The infection eventually subsides as a result. However, a defence mechanism previously identified in HIV works when the virus enzyme “excises” inhibitors, removing them and allowing the virus to continue multiplying.
In their study, to be published in the August issue of the journal Antimicrobial Agents and Chemotherapy (AAC) but already available online, Götte and colleagues experimented with a promising class of inhibitors, called nucleoside analogues, to see whether hepatitis C uses a similar defence mechanism. They found that some of these inhibitors are efficiently excised, while others remain attached and block a crucial virus enzyme. Understanding how some nucleoside analogues counteract excision may enhance their function as drugs.
Since hepatitis C infection is a major cause of severe liver damage and liver cancer, further research is needed urgently, says Götte. There are an estimated 200 million hepatitis C-positive people worldwide. Approximately 1 per cent of Canadians are infected with the virus, some 250,000 people.
Several factors have held back the development of better treatment to fight HCV. People often carry the infection unknowingly because symptoms arise much later as compared with HIV. Tests for patient infection were only made comprehensive in the early nineties, and the tools required for advanced drug design were not available until recent years.
“Treatment success depends largely on the strain of virus causing infection, and the current hepatitis C therapy is often thwarted by the most common strain. The success rate is much lower than seen in HIV drug treatment,” says co-author Megan Powdrill, a graduate student who worked on the study. Dr. Claudia D’Abramo, a former graduate student, and Dr. Jérôme Deval, a former postdoctoral fellow, are also co-authors of the paper.
Götte’s group is taking lessons from HIV therapy and drug development to boost research on HCV. His group and colleagues from Gilead Sciences, a biopharmaceutical company in California, recently experimented with a drug called tenofovir. Unlike AZT, another major anti-HIV drug, tenofovir counteracts excision in HIV by forming an inactive complex with the enzyme. This paper will also be published in the August issue of AAC. “Although the formation of a similar complex with hepatitis C inhibitors is not evident,” said Götte, “this adds to our understanding of how viral resistance can be overcome.”
This research was funded by the Cancer Research Society, the Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR), the National Canadian Training Program in Hepatitis C (NCRTP-HepC) and the Fonds de la Recherche en Santé du Québec (FRSQ).
Researchers at McGill University have found a clue in developing new drug candidates to fight the hepatitis C virus (HCV) by identifying a defence mechanism in the virus similar to resistance found in HIV.
“If you understand the biochemical mechanisms of drug resistance, you may be able to develop drugs in the test tube that are more capable of doing their job in the clinic,” says Dr. Matthias Götte, an associate professor in the Department of Microbiology & Immunology at McGill and a recipient of a national career award from the Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR). Antiviral therapies commonly employ inhibitors, compounds that block enzymes from reproducing the virus. The infection eventually subsides as a result. However, a defence mechanism previously identified in HIV works when the virus enzyme “excises” inhibitors, removing them and allowing the virus to continue multiplying.
In their study, to be published in the August issue of the journal Antimicrobial Agents and Chemotherapy (AAC) but already available online, Götte and colleagues experimented with a promising class of inhibitors, called nucleoside analogues, to see whether hepatitis C uses a similar defence mechanism. They found that some of these inhibitors are efficiently excised, while others remain attached and block a crucial virus enzyme. Understanding how some nucleoside analogues counteract excision may enhance their function as drugs.
Since hepatitis C infection is a major cause of severe liver damage and liver cancer, further research is needed urgently, says Götte. There are an estimated 200 million hepatitis C-positive people worldwide. Approximately 1 per cent of Canadians are infected with the virus, some 250,000 people.
Several factors have held back the development of better treatment to fight HCV. People often carry the infection unknowingly because symptoms arise much later as compared with HIV. Tests for patient infection were only made comprehensive in the early nineties, and the tools required for advanced drug design were not available until recent years.
“Treatment success depends largely on the strain of virus causing infection, and the current hepatitis C therapy is often thwarted by the most common strain. The success rate is much lower than seen in HIV drug treatment,” says co-author Megan Powdrill, a graduate student who worked on the study. Dr. Claudia D’Abramo, a former graduate student, and Dr. Jérôme Deval, a former postdoctoral fellow, are also co-authors of the paper.
Götte’s group is taking lessons from HIV therapy and drug development to boost research on HCV. His group and colleagues from Gilead Sciences, a biopharmaceutical company in California, recently experimented with a drug called tenofovir. Unlike AZT, another major anti-HIV drug, tenofovir counteracts excision in HIV by forming an inactive complex with the enzyme. This paper will also be published in the August issue of AAC. “Although the formation of a similar complex with hepatitis C inhibitors is not evident,” said Götte, “this adds to our understanding of how viral resistance can be overcome.”
This research was funded by the Cancer Research Society, the Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR), the National Canadian Training Program in Hepatitis C (NCRTP-HepC) and the Fonds de la Recherche en Santé du Québec (FRSQ).
Monday, July 23, 2007
New HIV infections outpace treatment
Source: Boston.com
By Meraiah Foley, Associated Press Writer | July 23, 2007
SYDNEY, Australia --Access to life-extending HIV/AIDS drugs in developing countries has improved during the past three years, but new infections still dramatically outpace efforts to bring treatment to patients, health officials said Monday.
Three years ago, fewer than 300,000 people in the developing world were receiving the anti-retroviral drugs that help treat the virus. Last year, 2.2 million people in developing countries received the drugs, according to Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the U.S. National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases.
"However, for every one person that you put in therapy, six new people get infected. So we're losing that game, the numbers game," Fauci told Australian Broadcasting Corp. radio.
In many parts of the developing world where the HIV/AIDS epidemic is still growing exponentially, effective prevention strategies -- such as condom distribution, needle exchanges and basic education about the disease -- reach less than 15 percent of the population.
"The proven prevention modalities are not accessible to any substantial proportion of the people who need them," said Fauci, one of the keynote speakers at the Fourth International AIDS Society Conference on HIV Pathogenesis and Treatment in Sydney, Australia, which runs through Wednesday.
"Although we are making major improvements in the access to drugs, clearly prevention must be addressed in a very forceful way," he added.
According to recent World Health Organization statistics, only 28 percent of the world's HIV/AIDS patients are receiving anti-retroviral drugs.
Dr. Brian Gazzard, chairman of the British HIV Association, said that while great advances have been made in extending access to anti-retrovirals, the disease is still running rampant in parts of Asia and Africa.
"The HIV epidemic is essentially uncontrolled, uncontrolled in Africa, uncontrolled completely in Asia right now," he told reporters at the conference, which has drawn 5,000 delegates from 133 countries. "The epidemic still is in an exponential growth phase ... and I think that is likely to continue."
By Meraiah Foley, Associated Press Writer | July 23, 2007
SYDNEY, Australia --Access to life-extending HIV/AIDS drugs in developing countries has improved during the past three years, but new infections still dramatically outpace efforts to bring treatment to patients, health officials said Monday.
Three years ago, fewer than 300,000 people in the developing world were receiving the anti-retroviral drugs that help treat the virus. Last year, 2.2 million people in developing countries received the drugs, according to Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the U.S. National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases.
"However, for every one person that you put in therapy, six new people get infected. So we're losing that game, the numbers game," Fauci told Australian Broadcasting Corp. radio.
In many parts of the developing world where the HIV/AIDS epidemic is still growing exponentially, effective prevention strategies -- such as condom distribution, needle exchanges and basic education about the disease -- reach less than 15 percent of the population.
"The proven prevention modalities are not accessible to any substantial proportion of the people who need them," said Fauci, one of the keynote speakers at the Fourth International AIDS Society Conference on HIV Pathogenesis and Treatment in Sydney, Australia, which runs through Wednesday.
"Although we are making major improvements in the access to drugs, clearly prevention must be addressed in a very forceful way," he added.
According to recent World Health Organization statistics, only 28 percent of the world's HIV/AIDS patients are receiving anti-retroviral drugs.
Dr. Brian Gazzard, chairman of the British HIV Association, said that while great advances have been made in extending access to anti-retrovirals, the disease is still running rampant in parts of Asia and Africa.
"The HIV epidemic is essentially uncontrolled, uncontrolled in Africa, uncontrolled completely in Asia right now," he told reporters at the conference, which has drawn 5,000 delegates from 133 countries. "The epidemic still is in an exponential growth phase ... and I think that is likely to continue."
Thursday, July 19, 2007
New issue of AIDS Care received (Vol. 19, no 6, July 2007)
AIDS Care - Psychological and Socio-medical Aspects of AIDS/HIVIn this issue:
The impact of HIV treatment on risk behaviour in developing countries: A systematic review
pp. 707 – 720
Abstract
Prevalence of HIV and factors associated with risk behaviours among Chinese female sex workers in Hong Kong
pp. 721 – 732
Abstract
Investigating factors associated with uptake of HIV voluntary counselling and testing among pregnant women living in North Uganda
pp. 733 – 739
Abstract
Adherence to antiretroviral therapy in a context of universal access, in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
pp. 740 – 748
Abstract
It's not just what you say: Relationships of HIV dislosure and risk reduction among MSM in the post-HAART era
pp. 749 – 756
Abstract
Self-monitoring of behaviour as a risk reduction strategy for persons living with HIV
pp. 757 – 763
FREE ACCESS
Adherence to antiretroviral therapy in children: A comparative evaluation of caregiver reports and physician judgement
pp. 764 – 766
Abstract
A continuum-based outcome approach to measuring performance in HIV/AIDS case management
pp. 767 – 774
Abstract
What is a missed dose? Implications for construct validity and patient adherence
pp. 775 – 780
Abstract
The social and economic impact of parental HIV on children in northern Malawi: Retrospective population-based cohort study
pp. 781 – 790
Abstract
Differences in HIV disclosure by modes of transmission in Taiwanese families
pp. 791 – 798
Abstract
Participatory communication and HIV/AIDS prevention in a Chinese marginalized (MSM) population
pp. 799 – 810
Abstract
Paediatric HIV/AIDS disclosure: towards a developmental and process-oriented approach
pp. 811 – 816
Abstract
Acceptability of PRO2000 Vaginal Gel among HIV un-infected Women in Pune, India
pp. 817 – 821
Abstract
Are sexual partners met online associated with HIV/STI risk behaviours? Retrospective and daily diary data in conflict
pp. 822 – 827
Abstract
Psychiatric morbidity in HIV-infected children
pp. 828 – 833
Abstract
Contact the library to request copies of articles.
HIV patients build normal immune strength in study
Source: Reuters
By Will Dunham
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - AIDS drug cocktails may be able to restore the ravaged immune systems of some people infected with HIV, researchers reported on Wednesday.
Immune cells known as CD4 T-cells returned to normal levels in an ideal group of patients, picked because they responded optimally to a combination of at least three AIDS drugs, the researchers reported in the Lancet medical journal.
The human immunodeficiency virus, which causes AIDS, plunders the immune system, leaving people vulnerable to a range of infections that may prove fatal.
AIDS is incurable, but doctors try to prop up the immune system with life-extending drug therapy aimed at reducing the amount of virus in the body.
The study involved 1,835 HIV-infected people drawn from a larger study involving more than 14,000 patients from across Europe, Israel and Argentina.
"I think it's very encouraging that if people can respond to treatment well enough and can suppress the virus for long enough, we have sufficient evidence to say their CD4 counts can return to normal," Dr. Amanda Mocroft of Royal Free and University College Medical School in London, one of the researchers, said in a telephone interview.
"Our previous understanding was that there was a plateau in CD4 counts so that CD4 counts would stop increasing after a sufficiently long time taking combination therapy," she added.
Mocroft said not all HIV patients respond as well to these drugs, and many, particularly in the hardest hit regions like sub-Saharan Africa, do not have access to them.
"This is sort of the best-case scenario, if you like, that we can identify a group of patients who we would expect to have a normal CD4 count with sufficient treatment," Mocroft said.
These patients were chosen because they responded well to the treatment, with the drugs suppressing the virus to very low levels. They were tracked for about five years.
Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the U.S. National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, said doctors who care for HIV-infected patients have noticed this restoration of normal levels of CD4 cells in some of them. Fauci credited Mocroft's team for documenting this phenomenon in a systematic way.
CD4 cells, a type of white blood cell, help protect the body from infection. But HIV targets CD4 cells, using them to create more copies of the virus, thus undermining the immune system.
After initial infection, a person can produce more CD4 cells to take the place of those attacked by HIV. But in time, the body cannot make enough, increasingly weakening the immune system.
Although it is impossible to eradicate the virus with existing drugs, it is possible to keep it at extremely low levels in some people with the right combination of drugs.
The AIDS virus infects close to 40 million people globally, most of them in Africa. It has killed more than 25 million.
By Will Dunham
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - AIDS drug cocktails may be able to restore the ravaged immune systems of some people infected with HIV, researchers reported on Wednesday.
Immune cells known as CD4 T-cells returned to normal levels in an ideal group of patients, picked because they responded optimally to a combination of at least three AIDS drugs, the researchers reported in the Lancet medical journal.
The human immunodeficiency virus, which causes AIDS, plunders the immune system, leaving people vulnerable to a range of infections that may prove fatal.
AIDS is incurable, but doctors try to prop up the immune system with life-extending drug therapy aimed at reducing the amount of virus in the body.
The study involved 1,835 HIV-infected people drawn from a larger study involving more than 14,000 patients from across Europe, Israel and Argentina.
"I think it's very encouraging that if people can respond to treatment well enough and can suppress the virus for long enough, we have sufficient evidence to say their CD4 counts can return to normal," Dr. Amanda Mocroft of Royal Free and University College Medical School in London, one of the researchers, said in a telephone interview.
"Our previous understanding was that there was a plateau in CD4 counts so that CD4 counts would stop increasing after a sufficiently long time taking combination therapy," she added.
Mocroft said not all HIV patients respond as well to these drugs, and many, particularly in the hardest hit regions like sub-Saharan Africa, do not have access to them.
"This is sort of the best-case scenario, if you like, that we can identify a group of patients who we would expect to have a normal CD4 count with sufficient treatment," Mocroft said.
These patients were chosen because they responded well to the treatment, with the drugs suppressing the virus to very low levels. They were tracked for about five years.
Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the U.S. National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, said doctors who care for HIV-infected patients have noticed this restoration of normal levels of CD4 cells in some of them. Fauci credited Mocroft's team for documenting this phenomenon in a systematic way.
CD4 cells, a type of white blood cell, help protect the body from infection. But HIV targets CD4 cells, using them to create more copies of the virus, thus undermining the immune system.
After initial infection, a person can produce more CD4 cells to take the place of those attacked by HIV. But in time, the body cannot make enough, increasingly weakening the immune system.
Although it is impossible to eradicate the virus with existing drugs, it is possible to keep it at extremely low levels in some people with the right combination of drugs.
The AIDS virus infects close to 40 million people globally, most of them in Africa. It has killed more than 25 million.
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