Successful result in primate study for new HIV antibody
This is potentially good news for people concerned about HIV. The treatment options improve every year and now HIV which used to be a certain death sentence is treatable for many people. While Magic Johnson was one of the first celebrities to show HIV could be successfully treated by a drug cocktail we are now entering into an era where vaccines may become effective. The latest trial of a new vaccine has shown itself to be 99% effective but unfortunately it was tested on primates rather than people so we cannot get out hopes up until we see it is 99% effective in humans.
The problem with HIV in general is that it is tricky. Just like with the flu viruses there appears to be many different strains of HIV. What may be effective for a particular strain of HIV might not be effective for all strains and like with the common cold or flu the virus mutates all the time. The study result is novel because it found an antibody which is 99% effective for treatment of any strain.
How it works below:
Experiments on 24 monkeys injected with HIV showed none developed the virus after first being given the new type of antibody, which attacks three critical parts of the disease.
But around one per cent of patients have the ability to develop “broadly neutralising antibodies”. These bind to structures on the surface of the pathogens known as “spikes”.
Spikes barely change and are identical among different strains, making it possible for these special antibodies to attack different mutations of the virus.
The result looks promising but again, animal studies do not provide evidence in support of effectiveness in humans. Only a human study can provide support for the effectiveness of this treatment in humans.