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A British social worker infected with the virus that causes AIDS appears to be completely free of the disease following an experimental therapy technique. The 44-year-old was the first of 50 people to undergo the pioneering treatment designed by scientists and doctors from five of the U.K.’s leading universities.
“We are exploring the real possibility of curing HIV,” Mark Samuels, managing director of the National Institute for Health Research Office for Clinical Research Infrastructure, told The Sunday Times.
It is the first therapy created to track down and destroy HIV in every part of the body. Previous attempts have failed because of the evasiveness of dormant cells, which continue to reproduce the virus.
“This therapy is specifically designed to clear the body of all HIV viruses, including dormant ones,” Professor Sarah Fidler, a consultant physician at Imperial College London, told the Times.
HIV compromises the immune system, leaving the body unable to fight off even relatively mild illnesses such as a common cold. There is no cure as yet, but antiretroviral therapies allow patients infected with HIV to live for years, even decades with the disease.
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The final stage of HIV is AIDS, in which the immune system collapses and is wholly incapable of fighting off infections.
Researchers in the U.K. study warn that no one is out of the woods yet. While the social worker’s results are encouraging, he is but the first in a trial of 50 patients. All 50 will need to demonstrate similar results and even then, will have to be tested repeatedly to ensure that the virus has not reproduced.
But still, researchers say their preliminary findings represent good news.
This is a huge challenge and it’s still early but the progress has been remarkable,” Samuels said.
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