RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – Each day, the same route. Towards the Federal University of São Paulo. Persistent steps forward. This week, infectologist Ricardo Diaz announced to the world the result of a research that should mark the history of the fight against the HIV virus.
In an international online conference, he detailed how he apparently managed to completely eliminate the virus from a patient’s body: “By interrupting the treatment we found not only that the virus has not returned, but it was no longer in places where it typically remains in the cells.”
When HIV invades the body, it connects, it enters the defense cells where it releases its genetic material. Thus, it can multiply. The drugs used today control this reproduction, thus decreasing its amount in the body and enabling a healthy life. But HIV remains dormant inside some cells.
In the treatment proposed by Professor Diaz’s team, substances identify these infected cells. Simultaneously, drugs are used to kill these cells. And others to boost the production of new healthy cells.
“We’re almost there. We must wait another 2 years to have more confidence to see if everything is proceeding the way we imagined”, explains the infectologist.
If the virus still does not show up in the next tests, this will have been the first time that someone became completely free of HIV only with the use of drugs.
Source: G1