Does the coronavirus affect the HIV reservoir?

How does COVID-19 affect people living with HIV? The intersection of the two diseases is the subject of amfAR’s latest research grant, The Foundation for AIDS Research. Specifically, a grant of $ 700,000 will help scientists explore two questions:

• What are the risks faced by long-haul COVID-19 HIV-positive travelers? The term “long-haul” refers to people who continue to experience negative symptoms, often for months, after clearing the COVID-19 infection.
• Does SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19, affect the HIV reservoir, which refers to HIV that lurks in dormant cells and cannot be eradicated by anti-HIV treatment ?

Annukka Antar, MD, PhD, of Johns Hopkins University, and Michael Peluso, MD, of the University of California at San Francisco seek to answer the first question. The amfAR grant will help them study and compare three groups of people in the United States: those who are HIV positive and also survived COVID-19 infection, those who are HIV positive but do not have COVID -19 and those who are HIV negative. but had COVID-19.

Mathias Lichterfeld, MD, PhD, of Massachusetts General Hospital and colleagues explore the second topic. They will compare the size of the HIV reservoir before and after a coronavirus infection and see if a strong immune response to COVID-19 affects the size of the HIV reservoir.

“The effects of COVID-19 on people living with HIV have been of major concern to us,” said Rowena Johnston, PhD, vice president and chief research officer of amfAR, in a press release announcing the subsidies. “We look forward to finding answers to the next round of questions regarding the long-term consequences of co-infection and their impact on future care.”

“We are very relieved to learn that people living with HIV do not appear to be at greater risk of hospitalization or death from COVID-19 than anyone else,” added amfAR Chief Executive Officer Kevin Robert Frost. “But many questions about SARS-CoV-2 and its potential interactions with HIV remain unanswered, and we hope that these research projects will provide important new knowledge about both viruses.

This is not the first coronavirus research funded by amfAR. Last year, the group launched the amfAR fund to fight COVID-19. For more details, see the July article “AIDS Group amfAR Awards Two Grants to Research COVID-19”. The article includes a video in a series exploring the intersections between the two diseases.

For a collection of articles on HIV in POZ, click on # COVID-19, where you will find “UPDATE: What people living with HIV need to know about the novel coronavirus”. To learn more about COVID-19, see the Basics section of COVIDHealth.com.