The road to cure HIV is progressing, but is still long

Setbacks in medical research against AIDS and HIV prove that the road remains long before finding universally effective treatments

The 22nd International Conference on AIDS was an opportunity to confirm concerns about the dangers for the embryo of an otherwise promising drug, dolutegravir. Four cases of malformation of the neural tube, the central nervous system of the embryo, were recorded between August 2014 and May 2018 in Botswana during the examination of 426 pregnant HIV-positive women who had taken this treatment before waiting for a treatment. baby. These malformations can cause serious deformities of the brain or vertebrae, often resulting in the child being stillborn.

Dolutegravir is a relatively new anti-HIV treatment, with fewer side effects than others and whose promoters believe it will generate less resistance in the long run. Countries helped by the US fund PEPFAR AIDS were about to become their primary antiretroviral therapy, said International AIDS Society (IAS) President Linda-Gail Bekker.

Waiting for more results public health organizations will recommend that HIV-positive women with pregnancy plans focus on other treatments. "It's hard but I think we have to wait," commented Dr. Zash.

"Very complicated challenge"

A clinical trial to extract HIV from human cells and eliminate it also disappointing results. The researchers tested different treatments, in addition to antiretrovirals that should prevent HIV-positive people from being sick with AIDS, in 60 men.

These volunteers received vaccines that were supposed to teach the immune system to recognize HIV and medicines to force the tanks concealing the virus to reveal themselves, in the hope that they will be attacked. But the health status of these men has not evolved differently from that of others taking only conventional treatment.

For researchers, cure people with HIV will mean reducing this virus responsible for AIDS to a state where it will no longer harm the health of the carriers, who will do without treatment, and where it can no longer be transmitted.

Good news

Good news came from France, however, with the confirmation of the total effectiveness in preventing HIV from pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP). Of the 1,435 volunteers recruited between May 2017 and May 2018 in the Paris region to take Truvada (emtricitabine / tenofovir), none was contaminated.