HIV Cure News & Updates 2016: First Patients Who Underwent Test Show Remarkable Progress
A new experiment in monkeys have showed a lot of progress in the study for HIV cure. United States scientists tried out drug combinations which helped monkeys get through the virus.
The Scientific American reports that the treatment is involved the standard Antiretroviral Therapy (ART) and another experimental antibody which acts similarly as the Takeda Pharmaceutical's Entyvio (also called as vedolizumab). The latter is an approved medicine in 50 countries for Crohn and ulcerative colitis diseases.
According to the Director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, Doctor Anthony Fauci, "the experimental treatment regimen appears to have given the immune systems of the monkeys the necessary boost to put the virus into sustained remission."
The findings of the study for HIV cure has already started in humans, a study published in Journal Science last October 13 said. The antiretroviral therapy help the virus push down to very low levels. However, according to one of the scientists who co-led the study, Aftab Ansari from Emory University School of Medicine, the drugs must be taken every single day since its consumption for the medicine to remain effective.
Another report from The Guardian says that a patient have acquired remarkable progress after taking a treatment that will cure HIV. However, the study still needs a long time to figure if the HIV is really gone after a long period of intake or it just stays in the patient's body.
According to Managing Director Mark Samuels of the National Institute for Health Research Office for Clinical Research Infrastructure, the test is "one of the first serious attempts at a full cure for HIV." He also said that the researchers "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."
