Here’s a little positivity — the human immunodeficiency virus, or HIV, is apparently losing its ability to cause AIDS.
In a study of more than 2,000 women in Botswana and South Africa, scientists suggested a less potent HIV could eventually lead 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.”
Goulder’s team looked at the “interaction between the body’s natural immune response and HIV leads to the virus becoming less virulent or able to cause disease,” according to Reuters.
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.
On Monday’s World AIDS Day, campaigners reported a reduction of deaths from AIDS as the annual number of new HIV infections was lower than the number of HIV positive people being added to those receiving treatment.
Currently, some 35 million people have HIV and AIDS. Although there have been some recent advances and progress made in preventing HIV transmission, HIV/AIDS remains one of the world’s most significant public health challenges to date.
SOURCE: Reuters | PHOTO CREDIT: Getty
