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JOHANNESBURGO.- As you know, the HIV or Human Immunodeficiency Virus is a retrovirus that attacks the immune system of the affected person.
According to vanguardia.com, it is a chronic disease transmitted through sexual, blood and perinatal routes. To prevent contagion, it is necessary to use condoms and avoid contact with infected blood.
You may also be interested in: They give the prison to a doctor who infected HIV patients in China
that a resident of a northern suburb of Johannesburg, known as Diepsloot, admitted to having deliberately spread HIV because "he does not want to die alone" David, as the man was identified, was interviewed by Golden Mtika's reporter for a documentary from BBC Africa Eye, titled "My Neighbout The Rapist & # 39;
According to the details given in the recording, the attacker admitted to being a rapist and admitted that the number of his victims was between 21 and 24.
" I have used no protection, I know I am HIV positive so I want to spread it, I feel good because I do not want to die alone.Cynism admitted to She caught her ex-girlfriend and l & # 39; sexually abused when she was a 14-year-old girl
At trial, two vaccines to treat HIV
After 35 years since its discovery, HIV, the virus responsible for AIDS, is "probably the most studied" of pathogens, admits Dan Barouch (44, born in Germany, although for him is irrelevant), professor of medicine at Harvard University and expert in infectious diseases.
Knowledge is not not materialized in what Barouch himself says will be decisive in control and, even more so in the future, HIV eradication: find a vaccine. " Millions of variants of the virus make it difficult ," he explains
According to information from El País, the researcher participated in Madrid's meeting Milestones on basic and clinical research on HIV / AIDS (Hibic), sponsored by Gilead. "Over the past year, there have been many advances in knowledge of the virus and the infection," Barouch said. "For example, on the role of reservoirs [células en las que el virus se oculta en estado de latencia] treatment strategies, epidemiology, pathogenesis and vaccines."
Specifically in this last case, the virologist points out that "since HIV is known, there have been six trials in humans with four different approaches, but now there are two." Therefore, he believes that progress in other aspects, such as drugs that chronicled the disease in the rich countries and that is now starting to be used to prevent infection (what is it? Pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) is called because it is taken before it is exposed to the virus, for example in unprotected sexual intercourse), "the interest in the vaccine does not occur." has not decreased.
Of these two trials, there is an improved version of the vaccine that has arrived the furthest: one that was tested between 2006 and 2009 in South Africa and Thailand and that conferred 31% protection, "which is considered insufficient ". It basically consists of adding a booster (boost in English) to one of the proteins, GP21, from the pathogen's envelope, Barouch explains.
The other, in which participates in the group of researchers, " has a completely new approach ". It uses another vector (a deactivated virus that is responsible for introducing the genes that will trigger the immune response), but most importantly, it has the novelty that parts of a single virus are not used, but that a "mosaic of sequences" forms computer-optimized antigens to increase the response, "he says. In other words, we try to cover as much as possible the huge variety of HIV that exists to improve the amplitude and coverage of the immune response. The work is in what is called phase II-b, says Barouch, which implies that its safety has already been proven (phase I) and its effectiveness is studied according to the doses. It is broad: 2,600 young women from southern Africa (South Africa, Zambia, Zimbabwe, Mozambique, Mali).
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