Health » Sick and Drug
HIV”s ability to cause AIDS is weakening over time, study finds
(10:55:24 AM 04/12/2014)A nurse (L) hands out a red ribbon to a woman, to mark World Aids Day, at the entrance of Emilio Ribas Hospital, in Sao Paulo December 1, 2014.
Scientists said the research suggests a less virulent HIV could be one of several factors contributing to a turning of the deadly pandemic, eventually leading to the end of AIDS.
"Overall we are bringing down the ability of HIV to cause AIDS so quickly," Philip Goulder, a professor at Oxford University who led the study, said in a telephone interview.
"But it would be overstating it to say HIV has lost its potency -- it's still a virus you wouldn't want to have."
Some 35 million people currently have HIV and AIDS has killed around 40 million people since it began spreading 30 years ago.
But campaigners noted on Monday that for the first time in the epidemic's history, the annual number of new HIV infections is lower than the number of HIV positive people being added to those receiving treatment, meaning a crucial tipping point has been reached in reducing deaths from AIDS.
Goulder's team conducted their study in Botswana and South Africa -- two countries badly hit by AIDS -- where they enrolled more than 2,000 women with HIV.
First they looked at whether the interaction between the body's natural immune response and HIV leads to the virus becoming less virulent or able to cause disease.
Previous research on HIV has shown that people with a gene known as HLA-B*57 can benefit from a protective effect against HIV and progress more slowly than usual to AIDS.
The scientists found that in Botswana, HIV has evolved to adapt to HLA-B*57 more than in South Africa, so patients no longer benefited from the protective effect. But they also found the cost of this adaptation for HIV is a reduced ability to replicate -- making it less virulent.
The scientists then analyzed the impact on HIV virulence of the wide use of AIDS drugs. Using a mathematical model, they found that treating the sickest HIV patients -- whose immune systems have been weakened by the infection -- accelerates the evolution of variants of HIV with a weaker ability to replicate.
"HIV adaptation to the most effective immune responses we can make against it comes at a significant cost to its ability to replicate," Goulder said. "Anything we can do to increase the pressure on HIV in this way may allow scientists to reduce the destructive power of HIV over time."
The study was published on Monday in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS).
You may also be interested in:
-
Vietnam’s second suspected Ebola case discharged after quarantine
-
U.S. to allow people from nations hit by Ebola to stay temporarily
-
Guinea says Ebola spreads to regions near AngloGold mine
-
Surprising fact: Foreigners visiting Vietnam for medical treatment
-
Vietnamese in Mozambique asked to keep watchful eye on Ebola
-
Seminar gives updates on asbestos-related diseases
-
Localities target leprosy reduction
-
Methadone therapy programme proves successful
-
Infertility rate among younger couples goes up in VN
Recent Posts:
- USAID Launches New Public Service Announcements to Tackle Rhino Horn Consumption (19/12/2019)
- Youth for Climate Cycling Event (within the framework of European Climate Diplomacy Week 2019) (28/09/2019)
- VIETNAM: New Study Offers Pathways To Climate-Smart Transport (17/09/2019)
- USAID works alongside Viet Nam’s National Assembly on effective wildlife conservation through demand reduction (26/07/2019)
- Winners of TRAFFIC’s sustainable traditional medicine competition announced (22/06/2019)
- Hanoi mobilizes resources to improve the city’s air quality (28/11/2018)
- Accelerating the implementation of the Paris Agreement in Viet Nam through joint national and international efforts (07/11/2018)
- USAID Promotes Chi Initiative to Drive Down Demand for Rhino Horn (28/08/2018)
- Siemens supplies equipment for Vietnam’s largest solar farm (14/07/2018)
- Members of Vietnamese and German companies take pledge against wildlife crime (30/06/2018)

HIV egg rumours dismissed
(Tinmoitruong.vn) - An official from the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development has rejected a rumour surfacing in the social media that Chinese chicken eggs sold in Vietnam have been injected with blood contaminated with Human Immuno-deficiency Virus (HIV).

HCM City succeeds in reducing gender imbalance at birth
(Tinmoitruong.vn) - HCM City has been successful in controlling gender imbalance at birth with a sex ratio of 106 to107 boys per 100 girls a year in the last four years, according to the city's Family Planning and Population Division.

"Irrational" Health Insurance Law amendments draw public ire
(Tinmoitruong.vn) - Though it offers more benefits for insured patients, the amended Health Insurance Law, which took effect last month, faces complaints about irrational provisions like refusing coverage if they do not go to the hospital designated on their insurance card.