HIV: A second person has been found to cure an infectious disease naturally in Argentina, raising hopes for treatment

Argentine scientists have discovered the second most famous person to cure HIV infection naturally, raising expectations for future treatments.

Eight years after being diagnosed, the patient, an Argentinean woman in her thirties from the city of Esperanza, was found to be free of the virus that causes the disease or the “intact” virus.

A group of Harvard-based scientists announced the discovery yesterday at a major international conference of HIV experts, bringing potential treatments to 38 million people with infectious diseases worldwide.

Known only as an “Esperanza patient,” she is the second person to carry the intact virus after the first virus (San Francisco-born Lauren Willenberg, 67) was discovered in August.

Argentine scientists have discovered the second most famous person to cure HIV infection naturally, raising expectations for treatment. Photo: Blood test tube (file photo)

‘Find one patient with this natural ability for functional healing [no virus that can reproduce] Dr. Natalia Lofer, a doctor and HIV researcher for patients in Buenos Aires, said: Times..

“That means there must be more people like this,” she explained. “This is a huge leap forward in the world of HIV treatment research. At the time of diagnosis, her test surprised us all.

The patient was diagnosed in 2013. Her boyfriend died of AIDS, but she survives. Both her current boyfriend and her newborn baby are HIV-negative, Laufer said, calling her a “healthy, athletic and beautiful woman.”

Two women (Esperanza patient and Willenberg) have never received antiretroviral therapy to fight the virus and show no signs of the virus in their blood, an extreme group of rare groups known as elite controllers. Here is an example.

Normally, when a person is infected with HIV, the virus attaches to the DNA of immune cells and propagates from there.

However, in the case of 1 in 200 elite controllers, most of the virus colonizes the inactive part of the genome known as the “gene desert” and does no harm. The rest of the virus is cleaned up by the body’s immune system.

The virus impairs the ability of people to fight other infections at the most serious and deadly stage known as AIDS.

Current antiviral drugs ensure that the immune system of HIV-positive patients is healthy and reduce the risk of developing the disease, but at a cost.

Eight years after being diagnosed, the patient, an Argentinean woman in her thirties from the city of Esperanza, was found to be free of the virus that causes the disease or the “intact” virus. “It’s good to find one patient with this natural functional healing ability, but finding two is more than that,” said Dr. Natalia Lofer, a doctor and HIV researcher for patients in Buenos Aires (pictured). It makes sense. “

Professor Xu Yu, an HIV researcher at Harvard Medical School’s Ragon Institute, said cases before the patient “cured” were associated with high-risk stem cell transplantation for patients with terminal cancer.

According to her, new discoveries and new understandings of how the body of elite patients deal with the virus “opens the door to potential treatments,” she said.

The research presented at the conference on retroviruses and opportunistic infections provides the most compelling evidence to date that scientists are making great strides towards the treatment of HIV.

Scientists have said it may be important to pinpoint where the HIV genetic material is in the body and to mimic the pattern of elite controllers.

Expectations for new treatments have increased in recent months after a study of more than 10,000 people identified a rare group of people infected with HIV in Africa.

Scientists have found that a group in the Democratic Republic of Congo (where the disease occurred) tested positive for HIV antibodies, but the viral load was low or undetectable without antiretroviral therapy.

These people are known as HIV elite controllers, say researchers at the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases.

This discovery could bring researchers closer to the goal of ending an HIV / AIDS pandemic that killed about 39 million people worldwide.

Photo: In the Democratic Republic of Congo, researchers conducting research in the lab after discovering a large number of people infected with naturally controlled HIV without the need for drugs on March 2, 2020 Raised expectations for finding a cure on Tuesday.

“Given that HIV is a lifelong chronic condition that usually progresses over time, it is important to find a large group of HIV elite controllers at the DRC,” said Johns Hopkins Global Health Center Director. , Tom Quinn says.

Dr. Quinn said there were previous cases where the virus did not progress in a small number of people, but the high frequency of DRC suggested that something was happening at a non-random physiological level.

“There is more work to be done in the global research community, but by sharing what we have learned from this study with other researchers, we can approach new treatments that may eliminate HIV. “Maybe,” said Mary Rogers, Abbott’s chief scientist and research author. This study was published in The Lancet’s EBioMedicine.