Expert AIDS cure more likely than vaccination

In AIDS, experts consider a cure more likely than the development of a vaccine against HIV

03/21/2014

Experts discuss the chances of recovery from AIDS. After a recently infected with HI virus baby for „functionally healed ", it seems that there is a greater likelihood that patients will no longer be dependent on drugs to control the virus all their lives, according to experts, a cure could even be possible before the development of an AIDS vaccine.

In very few cases is one „functional healing“ possible from Aids
HIV is still an incurable disease. Thanks to antiretroviral therapy, those affected can lead a largely normal life. Life expectancy has also increased significantly thanks to modern treatment. Some experts even assume that the cure of AIDS in the future is not unrealistic. „We will get a cure faster than a vaccine in the next few years, "said the AIDS researcher Hans Jäger, who runs the 15th Munich Aids and Hepatitis days, told the news agency „dpa“. From Friday to Sunday about 1,500 experts discuss the topic.

„The cure is a plannable concept, the therapies have gotten better, "said Jäger in the run-up to the congress, saying that at least 20 cases were known to have had a so-called" functional healing. "Physicians describe patients as functionally cured who have no practical viral load The most recent example is an HIV-infected baby from the United States, in which - although it received no treatment - the number of viruses did not increase.

However, in most patients, untreated HIV infection leads to the onset of AIDS. At this stage of the disease, the so-called opportunistic infections caused by bacteria, fungi, viruses or parasites occur. Patients also often suffer from malignant tumors such as Kaposi's sarcoma and lymph node cancer as well as HIV-related changes in the brain (HIV encephalopathy) and wasting syndrome. The latter can cause the death of the person in the further course.

Why could some HIV patients be cured??
Why some, very few patients even without treatment to the outbreak of AIDS, is still largely unexplained. In the blood of these people infected with HIV, it is true that the virus is usually treated as one „footprint“ However, the immune system keeps it under control, so that a drug therapy is no longer necessary. Hunters are two babies, two patients from Berlin and 15 others from a French study known to be functionally cured. „Of course these are far too few. We still do not understand the mechanisms that specifically brought these people to healing. We only know: It works. We have the proof that it is possible, "says the expert.

In the case of a HIV patient from Berlin, who suffered from leukemia, a stem cell transplantation caused the functional healing. A few years after treatment, the virus was no longer detectable in his body. The AIDS researcher also reports a process that overrides the helper-cell docking mechanism for the virus. In this way, the cells previously treated outside the body become immune to the HI virus when they are returned to the patient. As the old HIV-infected cells die, the new ones survive. Hunter believes that this „genetic editing“ even in patients who have been suffering from the infection for a long time to be effective.

Functional cure in AIDS only with high risk verifiable
In other cases, as in the 15 patients in the French study or in newborns and newcomers, the viral load in the blood had not increased despite discontinuation of therapy. „Now we have to transfer this to larger groups of patients, "explains Jäger. „We are in the process of examining whether it is no longer possible to belong to the functionally healed as those who have been treated early. "However, this is not so easy as there are always high health risks associated with stopping the medication It does not say whether a patient is functionally cured, which is why research focuses on laboratory testing, and says that when a vaccine is developed to fight HIV infection, it says that more money should be invested in therapy research.

According to information from the Robert Koch Institute (RKI), about 78,000 people in Germany suffered from HIV infection at the end of 2012 - including 200 children. In more than 3,400 people, a new infection was detected and about 550 patients died of AIDS.Worldwide, more than 35 million people are affected by the immune deficiency. (Ag)