A patient diagnosed fifteen years ago with a picture of acute infection with HIV was under a clinical trial with antiretroviral treatment for nine months. Now, having taken no medication since then, she has a absolute control of AIDS and has an undetectable viral load, that is, there is no way to find the virus in your bodyas announced by the Clinical Hospital of Barcelona.
Acquired immunodeficiency syndrome, known as HOWis an infection caused by HIV that puts the lives of people who contract it at risk by damaging their immune systemsince it interferes with the body’s ability to fight infections and diseases.
Thanks to advances in treatment, the disease has become chronic and Improve Life Quality of infected people, as is the case of the Barcelona woman. The study has been presented at the International AIDS Conference 2022, in Canadaand describes the immunological mechanisms of women, which confer a absolute control of HIV replication for more than 15 years.
The investigator Joseph Mallolas explained in a press conference that “the Barcelona patient”, as the team calls her to maintain her anonymity, has a functional healing. In other words, without any type of treatment, “it absolutely controls the replication of the AIDS virus”, but “It’s not that there are no viruses”, has emphasized, since when they analyzed their cells they found HIV virus, without being viral remains.
However, the case opens a hopeful door, because the woman “had no classical genetic factors associated with HIV controlshe was not an elite controller of the disease and even more, she presented a serious primary infection, something that is not usual in post-treatment controllers either”, he pointed out. Josep M. Mirócase investigator.
The virus had gone undetectable shortly after starting treatment more than a decade ago, so the procedure was stopped. Even though that him antiretroviral treatment it is effective in suppressing replication, the virus persists in reservoirs and recovers after discontinuation of therapy. Nevertheless, AIDS has not reappeared in the patient’s body.
The case presented is exceptional.
There are few people who keep undetectable viral loads without taking medication. “The great novelty of the work is that we have characterized the cells that gain control of the virus”, pointed out the researcher Nuria Climent These cells are ‘natural killer’, that they are part of the innate immune system and constitute the first line of defense against various pathogens; and the CD8+ T lymphocyteswhich are key in the defense of cells against viruses and bacteria.
through various crops in-vitro the woman’s cells were shown to be resistant to being infected by the virus, and a viral inhibition assay showed that the two lymphocytes mentioned above could either block the virus or destroy infected cells, thus slowing its spread.
“The case presented is exceptional.not only because there are very few people with long-term post-treatment control, but also because of the mechanism of HIV control, different from that described in elite controller patients and other cases documented so far,” he stressed. Joseph Mallolas
Likewise, the research team has assured that, now, the important thing is to study in depth the case of the woman from Barcelona to be able to “design research projects to replicate it in the rest of the people infected by the AIDS virus”, in such a way that although it is not possible to cure them, it can be achieved that they remain without treatment for many years.
“The functional cure of HIV is a goal much more realistic on a larger scale than sterilizing healing, which is why it is so important to understand the underlying mechanisms,” added researcher John Ambrosioni.