Monkey study dampens hopes for AIDS cure

ByaseL · 2014-07-21T06:44:10+00:00

PARIS - The monkey version of HIV can take refuge from anti-AIDS drugs within days of entering the body, a study said Sunday, dampening hopes for a human cure. If the same holds true for human beings, treatment may have to start "extremely early" after a person is infected with the virus that causes AIDS, according to researchers publishing in the journal Nature. The findings come just days after the disappointing announcement that a Mississippi baby thought to have been cleared of HIV through a potent dose of antivirals administered 30 hours after birth and continued for 18 months, has tested positive for the virus after two drug-free years. "The unfortunate clinical findings of viral rebound in the Mississippi baby appear to be concordant with the monkey data," study co-author Dan Barouch of the Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Centre (BIDMC) in Massachusetts told AFP. "These data certainly raise important challenges for HIV eradication efforts." A key challenge for curing HIV infection is the presence of viral reservoirs -- infected immune cells in which virus DNA can lie dormant for years, undisturbed by antiretroviral treatment (ART) or the immune system. In the vast majority of people, the virus starts proliferating as soon as treatment is stopped, which means the drugs have to be taken for life. Little is known about when and where these reservoir cells are established during HIV infection. Some had assumed the reservoirs are "seeded" by virus DNA during acute HIV infection -- when the presence of virus in the blood had already risen to a high level. But the new study found that in rhesus monkeys infected with simian HIV, or SIV, the reservoir was established "strikingly early" after infection. "The reservoir was established in tissues during the first days of infection, before the virus was even detected in the blood," said Barouch. The monkeys were started on antiretroviral treatment at three, seven, 10 and 14 days after SIV infection. Once the drugs were stopped, the virus replicated in all groups, though slower in the monkeys treated earliest. "The strikingly early seeding of the viral reservoir within the first few days of infection is sobering and presents new challenges to HIV-1 eradication efforts," the authors wrote.

Thread starter ByaseL
Start date Jul 21, 2014

ByaseL

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Monkey study dampens hopes for AIDS cure

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