Toulon, Var, February 27, 2012 — HIV-1 infection chronically concerns 34 million individuals worldwide. Although it is no longer a death sentence in countries having access to antiretroviral therapy, it remains such a threat in poor-resource countries. Actually, worldwide antiretroviral coverage is less than half of cases needing it.
Toulon, Var, February 27, 2012 — HIV-1 infection chronically concerns 34 million individuals worldwide. Although it is no longer a death sentence in countries having access to antiretroviral therapy, it remains such a threat in poor-resource countries. Actually, worldwide antiretroviral coverage is less than half of cases needing it.
Even in developed countries, the picture is not so bright. In the United States of America, figures published at the end of 2011 showed that only 28 percent of patients with HIV infection achieved and maintained undetectable levels of plasma viremia below 50 copies/ml.
When antiretroviral therapy is available and effective, problems of compliance, toxicity, long-term side effects and cost remain to be solved. This is explained by the fact that antiretroviral therapy must be taken daily and life-long due to the persistence of HIV reservoirs able to rekindle infection each time the drugs are stopped.
In 2003, a core group of researchers founded the first edition of the "International Workshop on HIV Persistence, reservoirs and eradication strategies". This biennial meeting took place in December 2011 for its last edition and will be reedited in Miami in December 2013.
Over the years, it allowed building a community of scientists, researchers, clinicians and patients' advocates to work on HIV reservoirs and HIV eradication. This working group has just launched online on Linkedin® a "meeting point" in order to gather most of the community working on these aspects: http://www.linkedin.com/groups/HIV-Reservoirs-Group-4286246
There are several new avenues to explore in terms of HIV cure. One of them is trying to induce a "functional cure" where HIV genetic material is still there but no viral replication is detected in the absence of antiretroviral therapy. The second one is a "sterilizing cure" where no trace of HIV is left.
Researchers from this group are testing three main strategies to attack HIV reservoirs:
-starting antiretroviral therapy at the very early stages of acute HIV infection (within a few days)
-reactivating latent HIV in order to purge the viral reservoir,
-developing immune interventions to control the HIV reservoir without antiretroviral drugs
-making immune cells resistant to HIV by gene therapy.
The online HIV reservoirs meeting point will be a new step to share ideas and preliminary results of these experiments.
Contact:
Alain Lafeuillade
General Hospital
CHITS
83056 Toulon
France
33-494616340
[email protected]
http://www.linkedin.com/groups/HIV-Reservoirs-Group-4286246