It seems unlikely after a full thirty years that we may be seeing the end of the tunnel on this horrid disease that has killed so many in the prime of their lives.
Yet this smells like a legitimate cure protocol. At least it is the first such convincing one that I have seen.
We have reached the point in this war that we can pretty well prevent much in the way of new infection. This is mostly because any victim now goes on the cocktail for live and generally fails to infect others, mostly because the virus is no longer available in his blood. It is however residing in cells were it can wait for an opportunity to reinfect the blood stream if the cocktail is withdrawn.
The upshot of this strategy is that the new infection rate is declining as carriers themselves die bout. We can see HIV been driven into extinction slowly over time in a given population.
Now we have a possible protocol able to actually eliminate the disease from the carriers at the cellular level. This will end the disease swiftly in populations able to be treated, though I suspect the process will be a little tricky to manage.
Israeli researchers develop promising new HIV treatment
by Staff Writers
Israeli researchers have developed a new treatment for HIV that kills human cells infected with the virus and could lead to a breakthrough in treating AIDS, the Haaretz newspaper said on Friday.
Whereas current treatments focus on inhibiting the replication of the HIV virus, the new treatment destroys infected cells without damaging healthy ones, the newspaper said.
The process makes use of peptides, or short protein segments, which vastly increase the replications of the virus once it enters a cell, causing the cell's self-destruction, Haaretz said, citing one of the researchers.
"The usual medications kill the virus that has entered the body during infection and the (peptide) treatment allows cells infected with the genetic load of the virus to be killed," Abraham Loyter, who carried out the study, was quoted as saying.
The study was published in the peer-reviewed British journal "AIDS Research and Therapy" in August and was co-authored by Loyter, Aviad Levin, Zvi Hayouka, and Assaf Friedler.
The researchers could not be reached on Friday, a day off in Israel
They have registered an Israeli patent but the treatment must still be tested on animals and humans, Haaretz said.
Around 33.4 million people suffer from the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) which causes AIDS. The vast majority, more than 30 million, live in low and middle-income countries, according to the World Health Organisation.
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