Man ‘cured of HIV after drug combo treatment flushed virus from body’
A MAN has been “cured of HIV” after an intense combination of drugs “flushed the virus from the body”.
The patient now says he has been given a “second chance at life” after receiving the treatment that experts say works like a temporary vaccine.
The Brazilian man, whose name was not released, had first been diagnosed with HIV in October 2012.
Researchers at the Federal University of São Paulo said he was given a combination of antiretroviral drugs and nicotinamide to rout out the virus.
The man had also stopped taking HIV medicines during the drug trials and one year later a blood test showed the virus was no longer present in his system.
Antibody levels to the virus were also undetected.
The results of the study were revealed at the AIDS2020 conference, which was held virtually.
The man was given a vaccine of experimental medicine every two months and the researchers found that these worked better than Truvada pills which prevent uninfected men from catching HIV.
If the case is confirmed then it will be the first time the virus has been cured without the use of a stem cell transplant.
Transplants are how one man in London had previously been cured.
Speaking at the conference Adam Castillejo said he is “living proof that it is possible to be cured”.
Experts now want to review whether or not the Brazilian man's remission lasts in order to put the experimental drugs through further human testing.
What are the symptoms of HIV?
Most infected people experience a short illness, similar to flu, two to six weeks after coming into contact with HIV.
These symptoms, which 80 per cent of infected people experience, are a sign that their body is trying to fight HIV. They include:
- Fever
- Sore throat
- Body rash
- Tiredness
- Joint and/or muscle pain
- Swollen glands
After this illness, which normally lasts one to two weeks, HIV sufferers will have no symptoms for up to 10 years - during which time they will look and feel well.
However, the virus will continue to cause progressive damage to a person's immune system.
Only once the immune system is already severely damaged will the person show new symptoms. These include:
- Weight loss
- Chronic diarrhoea
- Night sweats
- Skin problems
- Recurrent infections
- Serious, life-threatening illnesses
The 35-year-old said: "I'm very moved because it's something that millions of people want.
"It's a gift of life, a second chance to live."
HIV is hard to eliminate as once a person is infected it creates a “reservoir” of blood cells.
Here it lies dormant and cannot be moved by medications.
Infections can be controlled with various medications but if a patient stops taking them then the dormant virus reactivates and renews the disease.
Advancements in medication however mean that most people with HIV are able to live a normal life.
Dr Ricardo Diaz of the University of Sao Paulo in Brazil led a study testing drug combinations and said the team are technically trying to “wake up the virus” by “flushing it out of hiding”.
Other specialists however were quick to highlight that this case had happened with just one man and said that it was too soon to speculate on whether or not the treatment could cure HIV.
Dr Monica Gandhi, an AIDS specialist at the University of California, San Francisco said: "These are exciting findings but they're very preliminary,"
"This has happened to one person, and one person only, and it didn't succeed in four others given the same treatment.”
This is while charities have also warned that the study was just a pilot, and that there is “no immediate breakthrough” that would lead to a cure for HIV.
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Dr Michael Brady, medical director at Terrence Higgins Trust said that it was encouraging that the Brazilian patient did not undergo the harmful treatment that London patient Adam Castillejo did, and that the outcome for the patient was still unknown.
“What we can say with certainty, however, is that scientific progress in the ability to treat HIV has been one of the biggest successes in modern medicine and we shouldn’t lose sight of this.
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"Effective treatment now means people who are diagnosed early and accessing treatment can expect to live long and healthy lives, and cannot pass on the virus.
“By maximising HIV testing and ensuring everyone can access effective treatment we now have a real opportunity to end new HIV transmissions by the end of this decade but we won’t get there without removing the fear and stigma associated with HIV, so more people get tested and access life-saving treatment.”