Medical advances give hope to HIV patients

MANILA, Philippines – Three medical advances are now raising the hope that there will be a cure in the future for HIV (human immunodeficiency virus) which has infected 34.2 million people across the globe, an official of the Department of Health (DOH) said.

“The future for HIV is clear. There are three future directions and number one of these is the continuing pursuits of better antiretroviral (ARV) drugs and second, in the field of vaccines. There are many promising researches in vaccines,” said Dr. Gerard Belimac, program manager of the DOH’s National AIDS/Sexually Transmitted Infection Prevention and Control Program.

But the closest to getting a cure for HIV, according to Belimac, is “stem cell transplantation” in the case of the so-called Berlin patient who is now the subject of extensive studies in the United States.

The patient, identified as Timothy Ray Brown of San Francisco, was the first person reported to have been cured of HIV after undergoing stem cell transplantation.

Brown was diagnosed with HIV in 1995 but while living in Germany in 2006, he developed leukemia.

He underwent the transplant using stem cells taken from a Caucasian donor. It turned out that the donor had a rate gene that was naturally resistant to HIV.

“What was done was that the infected white blood cells are flushed out at first from the body and then they were replaced with the new stem cells. The stem cells are HIV-resistant. So eventually the new stem cells will invade the whole body and so these new stem cells will become the new immune system of the person,” Belimac said.

Belimac said HIV attacks first the body’s CD4 cells. But before this happens, the virus must enter the cells first through CCR5, known as the “co-receptor” of HIV.

“CCR5 is the one that opens the door to CD4 cells, so to speak. It turned out that the donor does not have CCR5,” he said.

But while almost five percent of Caucasians naturally do not have CCR5, there is no documented case on this among Asians, unfortunately.

“The implication of this is that if you want to get transplantation, you need a donor that shares similar characteristics of the person. So meaning you want a donor who is a close relative, and if not a relative, at least a Filipino, if not a Filipino at least Asian. And the genes are actually among Caucasians. So we don’t say (there is) a high probability that an Asian can actually receive, accept or tolerate a Caucasian donor,” he added.

But still, finding a cure for HIV will be a big boost to efforts to control the spread of the virus which has killed 1.7 million individuals worldwide.

The DOH has recorded a total of 10,514 HIV cases since 1984 and 1,098 of them have developed into full-blown AIDS while 353 have died. –Sheila Crisostomo (The Philippine Star)