Remember HIV?

Posted on | September 8, 2009 | 2 Comments

While Swine Flu continues to demand all the headlines this Fall, as kids head back to school, it would be easy to miss some big news on another front in the war against global infectious diseases.^1,2 Remember HIV? Well it has never gone away. In fact, 33 million are currently infected with the disease and nearly 3 million die from it annually.³ Almost 900 million dollars were spent last year in the search for an effective vaccine against HIV.⁴ There have been over 100 vaccine studies since 1987. But the latest one, created by Merck, like others before it, failed in 2007 to provide immunity from the disease.⁵

With a little luck, that could change in the future. We have known for some time that some individuals exposed to the deadly microbe fail to get the disease. The theory has been that these individuals must possess antibodies to the disease that kill HIV before it has the chance to establish a foothold in their bodies.

Antibodies are proteins that are released in the body by your immune system. They are able to attach to the surface of a foreign organism and prevent its spread or entry into human cells. Vaccines, when successful, provoke the body into creating antibodies against specific viruses or bacteria, offering future protection from specific infections.

Up till now, only four antibodies against HIV had been found, and none of them proved effective in creating immunity. But last week, Dennis Burton of the Scripps Research Institute and his team reported what they hope will be a breakthrough in the journal Science.⁶ What they uncovered were two brand new antibodies detected in a single individual from Africa. What makes this discovery particularly significant is two factors. First, these two proteins are described as “broadly neutralizing”, which means that they seem to be effective against most of the thousands of different HIV strains. Second, they are felt to be 10 times as powerful in attaching to the virus and preventing its entry into cells when compared to the first four antibodies that were discovered.^2,6

Researchers express caution. As Dr. Burton said, this “doesn’t necessarily translate into an ability to protect humans”.² But it does provide scientists with some new tools to reinforce the HIV vaccine research effort. It also reminds us, in a timely way, that flu’s will continue to come and go, but HIV will be with us forever unless we redouble our efforts to define a lasting cure.

For Health Commentary, I’m Mike Magee

References:

1. McKay B, Fairclough G. Swine Flu Remains Mild As Vaccine Advances. Wall Street Journal. A3, Sept. 4, 2009.

2. Naik G, New Antibodies To HIV Found. Wall Street Journal. A3, Sept. 4, 2009.

3. Worldwide HIV & AIDS Statistics.

http://www.avert.org/worldstats.htm

4. Biomedicine. Shifting Scientific, Health Priorities and Global Economic Downturn Impact Investment in HIV Prevention R&D. 7/20/09 http://bit.ly/vcG66

5. Science Daily. Insights Into Failed HIV-1 Vaccine Trial. http://bit.ly/xufav

6. Science, Published Online September 3, 2009. Walker LM et al. Broad and Potent Neutralizing Antibodies from an African Donor Reveal a New HIV-1 Vaccine Target. http://bit.ly/l1Cfq

Category: Uncategorized

Comments

2 Responses to “Remember HIV?”

Caramoantour
December 27th, 2009 @ 10:01 pm

It is quite scary that there is still no cure for HIV/AIDS and the only way we can fight it is by prevention. How long would it take our scientists to develop a cure or vaccine for this disease?
~
Ask a Doctor
January 13th, 2010 @ 9:14 am

AIDS vaccine is said to be in an advanced stage of development and may be found soon. Till then and even after it is made available, the best way to avoid contacting Aids is the age old method of prevention.