Where is the only person who escapes from the HIV death virus?

So far, only one person in the world is said to have cured the infection of HIV - Timothy Ray Brown "Berlin patient". However, no one knows exactly what aspect of Brown's treatment helped him escape the disease.

>>>Revealed first AIDS patient cured

Currently, a new test on monkeys has provided revealing evidence, a rare genetic mutation in Brown's donor to bone marrow that could play a key role in the successful treatment of he.

The HIV virus was removed from Brown's body in 2007 after he underwent a course of treatment for leukemia, the cancer of white blood cells, in Germany. During the treatment of leukemia, Brown first underwent radiotherapy to kill cancer cells and stem cells that are making them in his bone marrow, then received a bone marrow transplant from a Healthy people to produce new blood cells.

After treatment, not only did leukemia lessen but the amount of HIV in Brown's body also decreased to undetectable levels and the condition was maintained since then, although he did not use the Antiviral drug (ART), which is often used to maintain low levels of HIV in patients.

Timothy Ray Brown

Three possibilities

The reason why the HIV virus seems to no longer exist in Brown's body might be, bone marrow transplantation from a donor possesses a rare genetic mutation that causes human CD4-T cells - The main attacked immune cells when infected with HIV - are able to resist the AIDS pathogen.

Possessing the mutation called the above 32 delta has caused immune cells to possess a common sense of CCR5 distortion, which prevents the virus from entering the cells.

However, it is also possible that radiation therapy killed nearly all of Mr. Brown's HIV-containing cells at the beginning of the treatment for leukemia. And so, the genetic mutation in bone marrow donors has no role in helping Mr. Brown escape HIV.

In addition, another possibility is that new immune cells, which are implanted by bone marrow cells, attacked Brown's original cells - a phenomenon known as "tissue disease." transplant against host " . This may have destroyed any of the HIV-containing contents left in his body after radiation therapy.

What is the main agent?

In a small study recently conducted, Dr. Guido Silvestri, a pathologist at Emory University (USA) and colleagues applied the same treatment to Brown for 3 monkeys, To find out which steps in the course of cancer treatment can help eliminate the HIV virus.

Experimental animals are intentionally infected with SHIV, a virus that is related to HIV and causes a disease similar to AIDS in monkeys. Monkeys have been given antiviral drugs for a while to simulate the condition of AIDS patients. They then underwent radiotherapy and transplanted their own bone marrow cells, which were collected before they were infected with SHIV.

Figure simulating HIV virus in blood circulating in the human body.(Photo: Shutterstock)

The team found that radiotherapy kills most immune cells and blood cells of three monkeys, including up to 99% of their CD4-T cells. At this stage of experiments, discoveries open up the possibility that radiation therapy may be a key step in treating Brown, through the elimination of most sources of HIV.

The scientists also found that the transplant brought the generation of blood and immune cells without HIV within a few weeks. That said, the bone marrow transplant test in monkeys was successful. If the monkeys are confirmed to be cured of HIV, the researchers will be able to eliminate the possibility of graft disease against the host, since each monkey has been implanted with its own cells.

However, after the treatment, once the researchers stopped giving the monkeys oral antiviral drugs, the amount of SHIV increased rapidly in 2 of the 3 lab animals. The third monkey still has the HIV virus in many body tissues when he dies (scientists are forced to let this animal die after it has kidney failure), implying that all three lab animals have not been cured. by treatment like Brown, according to research reports published in PLOS Pathogens.

The finding supports the idea that, although radiotherapy may reduce the amount of HIV virus, this therapy is not yet able to eliminate all sources of AIDS-containing pathogens in the body. Therefore, in the case of Berlin patients, or the genetic mutation of a donor of bone or graft disease against a host plays a decisive role, helping him to be cured of HIV.

Treatments for Beerlin patients have been tested in at least 2 other HIV patients with lymphatic cancer. However, those who donated bone marrow in these cases did not have a rare mutation in the CCR5 gene. The patients initially seemed to get rid of HIV, but the virus re-emerged after a few months and they were forced to use ART again.

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