5 HIV Patients Walked Virus Free After Being Treated With A New Vaccine. Did We Find A Cure?

HIV has plagued our society for decades now. Countless people have suffered a terrible fate at the hands of this deadly virus. The virus attacked the body’s immune system and left it defenceless against an array of infections and diseases. Moreover, there were no methods to entirely eliminate the virus from your system. So if you caught HIV, you had it for life.

However, that’s soon to change.

Five HIV-infected patients were left completely virus-free in early vaccine trials. HIV was undetectable in their systems and they did not require daily drugs to deter the effects of the virus any longer. 

The trial was conducted on a sample of 24 patients out of which these five showed promising results. In fact, one of them has been HIV-free for seven months now!

 

The patients were given two vaccines which were designed to stimulate the production of white blood cells (WBCs) which could find and destroy other cells infected with HIV.

 

The participants continued to take the drugs for three years while their immune system responses were being monitored.

 

15 of these participants also received a booster dose with a drug called ‘romidepsin’, which has been known to flush out the HIV virus from tissues where it could lay dormant for ages.

The five patients who seem to have been cured are from this sample of 15.

 

Mitchell Warren, executive director of the Aids Vaccine Advocacy Coalition (Avac), said that these findings were both ‘interesting and important’.

“Long-term systems that don’t require daily pill taking could really help accelerate getting 37 million people with HIV undetectable and not infectious – that would be a great opportunity to turn the tide on the epidemic.”

While it’s still too early to tell whether this new-found vaccine is a definitive cure for HIV, it’s certainly a step in the right direction. The HIV virus is capable of lying dormant for long periods. These virus-free patients must be monitored for sustained periods to ensure they are indeed entirely cured.

Here’s to incredible scientific progress!

News Source: The Independent

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