A report into HIV by the Greater London Assembly Health Committee says the Department of Health must publish a London strategy for HIV that has languished in its desk drawers since 2001. The GLA also urges a London HIV and STD awareness campaign, targeted at young people, single heterosexuals, and members of immigrant communities, commenting: “It is essential to confront the population of London with the reality of the HIV pandemic.”
Immunity to a partner’s HIV can be acquired from repeated exposure to it through unprotected sex, UK expert Dr Barry Peters has found. CD4 cells taken from HIV negative women who had consistently had monogamous unprotected sex with a positive male partner were 10 times more resistant to HIV infection than usual. Peters stresses that people should not see the findings as okaying unsafe sex. But studying the way the body acquires sexual immunity to HIV could lay the foundations for a vaccine.
Scientists have found a way of growing T-cells in a dish. When transplanted, they grow into mature T-cells that could be used to restore damaged immune systems. Researchers from Toronto University found how to coax stem cells taken from mouse embryos to become T-cells by stimulating them with a growth protein called DL1. The team are now studying how to apply the technique to humans.
‘Virginity pledges’ by US teenagers are not often honoured, a study has found. The rate of sexually transmitted diseases (STDs) was statistically similar between teens who took virginity pledges - in which they vow to abstain from sex before marriage - and ones who did not. And there was actually a higher rate of STDs in communities with a lot of ‘pledgers’ than in ones with only a few. Peter Bearman of Columbia University, co-author of the study, commented: “It’s difficult to simultaneously prepare for sex and say you’re not going to have it”.
If you catch more than one strain of HIV, you will get sicker, quicker, a study reveals. US researcher Dr Geoffrey Gottlieb found that five of 65 people studied were infected at or around the same time with more than one strain of HIV, possibly from more than one person. All five had become sick, developed Aids and died much faster than people infected with just one strain of HIV. Their average time from infection to developing an Aids-defining illness or dying was only 3.4 years - about a third of the normal time.
A new drug has been developed that is able to purge four-fifths of the ‘hidden’ HIV in monkeys. Current drugs can clear most virus but some remains hidden inside ‘resting’ immune cells, where it cannot be got at by conventional medication and reappears if medication is stopped. Dr Octavio Ramilo of the University of Texas joined an antibody that locks specifically on to HIV-infected CD4 cells to the deadly poison ricin. This ‘immunotoxin’ reduced the viral load in monkeys already on treatment by a further 83 per cent.
Drug manufacturer Boehringer Ingelheim has issued a stronger warning to doctors about potential safety risks associated with its drug nevirapine (Viramune®). BI says that women, especially with CD4 counts over 250, are at particular risk of the drug’s side effects, which include liver problems and a sometimes severe rash. Patients new to the drug should be closely monitored to 18 weeks and those with liver abnormalities should not be given nevirapine.
The 11th Retrovirus conference in San Francisco heard about the first successful
trials in humans of an orally-dosed entry inhibitor HIV pill. We already
have an entry inhibitor, T-20 (Fuzeon®) but it has to be injected and
is very expensive. Bristol-Myers Squibb said its drug BMS-488043 produced
10 to 100-fold drops in HIV viral load in two-thirds of 24 people given it
as monotherapy (it will have to be given in combination in practice).
