A major breakthrough in the fight against HIV: For years, scientists have searched for a method to attack latent T-cells carrying viral material inside them, although most available drugs concentrate their firepower on active cells. However, a new treatment based on a drug known as Vorinostat helped a 44-year-old British patient completely purge the virus from his system. The patient will need to monitor his condition for years, but we could be looking at the first documented case of a total cure through therapy.
The battle against HIV
It is undoubtedly one of the greatest challenges facing modern medicine. The Human Immunodeficiency Virus, responsible for Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome or AIDS, has been challenging the world's best experts for 35 years. Over that time, different approaches have been explored to defeat the disease, leading to the main weapon in our arsenal: antiretroviral drugs. Even so, these drugs are not perfect. Side effects, viral resistance and high cost affect (or could affect) to a greater or lesser degree the almost 37 million infected people worldwide. Current therapies can attack T-cells called active, but they can do nothing in the case of latent cells. What is the strategy? In very simple terms, give those cells a "shock".
A promising new therapy
According to an article published in The Sunday Times, scientists from five British universities (Oxford, Cambridge, Imperial College London, University College London and King's College London) developed a special treatment with the participation of fifty patients, and the first of them to complete it, a 44-year-old social worker living in London, managed to completely purge the virus from his body. Subsequent tests have not been able to detect the virus in the blood, and if the condition persists over time, we could be looking at the first patient cured of HIV with therapy. The treatment is divided into two phases: first, a vaccine assists the body in identifying infected cells; second, the drug Vorinostat is responsible for "waking up" latent cells, leading to their subsequent destruction.
Caution still advised
Naturally, all involved recommend caution. They are still far from being able to declare this new process a cure (the results of the remaining participants still need to be confirmed), and the patient in question will have to continue with medication and tests for years. However, unlike the case of Timothy Brown (who was cured with a stem cell transplant), this discovery would be within reach of the vast majority of those infected.
