New Vaccine Approach Gives Hope to Those Living with HIV
Jesse Emspak, LiveScience Contributor
Date: 25 January 2012
Brian Brown has been taking antiretroviral drugs for five years. If he
stops, the human immunodeficiency virus, or HIV, in his body will
multiply and eventually, he'll get really sick. "You have to take them
with food," Brown said. "Even if you aren't really hungry." A
39-year-old licensed practical nurse, Brown has to remember to take his
drugs daily. It's a routine familiar to people with all kinds of chronic
diseases, including HIV and diabetes.
Brown got a break, though. In 2010, he was part of a study of a new kind of vaccine for HIV, called Vacc-4x, from a company called Bionor. He was able to stop taking his two drugs for almost two years. The vaccine didn't cure him, but it cut down the number of HIV viral particles in his body to nearly undetectable levels, and his immune system's virus-fighting cells, called T-cells, went up.
Vacc-4x is just one HIV treatment that illustrates a new approach to HIV vaccines that has gained increasing currency in the last few years. Most people think of vaccines as a preventative measure, and early efforts to control HIV were focused on that strategy. The problem is that even though some are promising, preventing infection doesn’t do any good for the 34 million people worldwide who are already infected. To stop the spread, the key might be a post-infection vaccine like those given for rabies.
HIV, however, is a tough nut to crack. It attacks the very cells that detect and kill invading pathogens. Even when it isn't actively replicating, it can live in tissues in the nervous system or the gut for years. This is one reason HIV takes so long to manifest, and why the immune system has a tough time recognizing it and destroying infected cells. [7 Devastating Infectious Diseases]
Brown got a break, though. In 2010, he was part of a study of a new kind of vaccine for HIV, called Vacc-4x, from a company called Bionor. He was able to stop taking his two drugs for almost two years. The vaccine didn't cure him, but it cut down the number of HIV viral particles in his body to nearly undetectable levels, and his immune system's virus-fighting cells, called T-cells, went up.
Vacc-4x is just one HIV treatment that illustrates a new approach to HIV vaccines that has gained increasing currency in the last few years. Most people think of vaccines as a preventative measure, and early efforts to control HIV were focused on that strategy. The problem is that even though some are promising, preventing infection doesn’t do any good for the 34 million people worldwide who are already infected. To stop the spread, the key might be a post-infection vaccine like those given for rabies.
HIV, however, is a tough nut to crack. It attacks the very cells that detect and kill invading pathogens. Even when it isn't actively replicating, it can live in tissues in the nervous system or the gut for years. This is one reason HIV takes so long to manifest, and why the immune system has a tough time recognizing it and destroying infected cells. [7 Devastating Infectious Diseases]
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