On the occasion of World AIDS Day, which took place on December 1, Why Doctor offers you a series that summarizes the state of science on this disease. Today, how the “cure” of an HIV-positive patient announced last November should make it possible to explore new avenues for overcoming HIV.
- In France, 173,000 people live with HIV
- Analysis of observed “cure” processes could guide work aimed at defeating the AIDS virus
An extremely rare case but which perhaps announces decisive advances in the fight against HIV, the AIDS virus: on November 16, the publication Annals of Internal Medicine announced that a 30-year-old Argentinian had just been considered “cured” of this disease without treatment or transplant. He was the second ex-HIV positive person in whom all traces of the virus had disappeared without antiretroviral treatment or a transplant of stem cells carrying a genetic mutation protecting against HIV.
And it is of course the reproduction of the immune control observed in these two patients that an American team relied in 2017 to develop an experimental vaccine whose clinical trials have not been conclusive.
Antiretroviral treatments or stem cell transplant
Today, most HIV-positive patients require antiretroviral treatment to control the virus so that they do not develop AIDS. Among them, according to an American immunovirology specialist quoted by Sciences et Avenir, 10 to 15% succeed after a few months to do without this treatment. They benefit from an immune response that controls or even neutralizes the virus.
A result which is the culmination of two different processes: “Either they develop a high level of TCD8 lymphocytes but very few neutralizing antibodies, or they reach a high level of neutralizing antibodies despite a level of TCD8 lymphocytes which does not isn’t particularly high,” says Tae-Wook Chunb in an article published last October in the journal Nature.
The other technique aimed at eliminating all traces of the virus is stem cell transplant. It is then a question of relying on these cells from people carrying a genetic mutation of the CCR5 gene which provides protection against the development of HIV.
But the capacity of the two patients considered “cured” without the support of antiretroviral treatment or a stem cell transplant seems to be able to indicate other ways to defeat the AIDS virus.
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