An 18-year-old is in remission from HIV despite not having taken any drugs to fight the virus for 12 years.
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She was initially treated with a drug created to prevent the infection from taking hold.
The results have AIDS experts more optimistic than ever that it’s possible to put a serious dent into the pandemic of human immunodeficiency virus (HIV), which has killed almost 40 million people and which infected close to 37 million more. Two months later, following discontinuation of treatment, she had a very high viral load which prompted doctors to start her on four antiretroviral drugs.
The study was presented at the worldwide AIDS Society conference in Vancouver.
He also notes that she does not have any of the known genetic variants/biomarkers that provide natural control or protection from the HIV virus.
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He said the most likely explanation for her long term remission was receiving a combination of antiretrovirals very soon after infection.
“This is the first [time] long-term remission has been shown in children, or adolescents”, said Asier Sáez-Cirión of the Institut Pasteur in France.
“At the end of the day, we were just extremely privileged to have medicine, especially in the early 90s”, he says. She did not possess those genes known as “elite controllers”.
The girl, who was treated for HIV as a baby, had no detectable virus 18 months after stopping treatment.
“This will prevent many, many people from acquiring HIV infection and it will allow people in couples to actually live a very carefree life as far as their infection is concerned”, said Garcia.
Sharon Lewin, director of University of Melbourne’s Peter Doherty Institute for Infection and Immunity, said the finding was interesting but researchers “need to move beyond these anecdotal cases in our quest for a cure”, The Guardian reports. “Her case though constitutes a strong additional argument in favour of initiation of antiretroviral therapy as soon as possible after birth in all children born to seropositive [HIV positive] mothers”, she said.
Some new HIV drug research findings were released this week that affirm a scientific understanding that has been growing now for a few years.
“This girl is in remission”, Saez-Cirion said in an interview.
Truvada is distinct from the treatment offered to rape victims and others like first responders and health care workers who suffer needle injuries. With sophisticated tests, they can detect biological evidence of the virus in her blood, though not the virus itself. At the time, the standard treatment for HIV lasted for a period of 6 weeks and included one drug, zidovudine. Only eight cases of HIV transmission occurred in uninfected partners of HIV-infected participants who received antiretroviral therapy. When the family reemerged, the mother revealed she had taken the French girl off the treatment, yet lab reports showed the virus was still in remission.
Nobel laureate Francoise Barre-Sinoussi, who helped in the discovery of HIV in 1983, said that from this patient, a lot of knowledge can be extracted and used, that is why this discovery has made everyone excited.
Although there is still much to learn, predicting HIV remission has been the subject of studies in the past.
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To evaluate the safety of early treatment, potentially life-threatening symptomatic events not attributable to AIDS and unscheduled hospitalizations for reasons other than AIDS were assessed in both treatment groups.
