British scientists get closer to finding HIV cure

Scientists say remarkable progress has been made in a trial geared towards finding a possible cure for HIV infection.

The United Kingdom scientists, working with clinicians, announced the development when a test patient showed no signs of the virus after “complete treatment”.

The research, which was carried out by five of Britain’s top universities in collaboration with NHS, combined antiretroviral drugs with a drug that reactivates dormant HIV and a vaccine that makes the immune system destroy infected cells.

Sunday Times reports that there are fifty patients in the ongoing trial.

“This is one of the first serious attempts at a full cure for HIV. We are exploring the real possibility of curing HIV. This is a huge challenge and it’s still early days but the progress has been remarkable,” said Mark Samuels, the managing director of the National Institute for Health Research Office for Clinical Research Infra­structure.

HIV has the ability to hide from the immune system in dormant cells; hiding from tests and resisting therapy.

The research tries to trick the virus into emerging from it’s hiding place and triggers the body’s immune system to recognise and attack it.

Before now, patients have to use antiretroviral drugs for life because it does not have the capacity to eradicate the disease.

There are approximately 37 million people living with HIV worldwide and about 35 million people have died from the virus.

The only person believed to have been cured of HIV is Timothy Ray Brown, an American treated in Germany.

Brown needed a bone marrow transplant to replace his own cancerous cells with stem cells that would remake his immune system.

His doctor found him a donor who was naturally resistant to HIV infection due to a genetic mutation that blocks HIV from entering the cells in the human body.