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New antibody attacks 99% of HIV strains

bbc.com

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Re: New antibody attacks 99% of HIV strains

#131

Post by nikanj »

afarrell wrote: post #88
otakucode wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Gardasil gives immunity to a few different strands of HPV, notably the most dangerous ones in terms of causing cancer risk. I do not know if it is reasonable to expect we will ever be able to totally eradicate all strains of HPV. Luckily most strains are, like most strains of herpes, innocuous. That's how they manage to infect the vast majority of the populace in the first place.

As of a few years ago, a new variety of Gardasil, called Gardasil-9 was approved by the FDA and it induces immunity against more varieties.

Nine of them, as one could easily deduct. There's dozens of HPV strains, most of them relatively harmless.

Re: New antibody attacks 99% of HIV strains

#132

Post by spklin »

vkou wrote: post #119
kentosi wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you're getting treatment, the amount of HIV in your blood is regularly measured as your "viral load". It's possible, with treatment, for people with HIV to have a viral load labelled undetectable. To date, from an article I read, there have been no recorded transmissions from people with an undetectable viral load. https://www.preventionaccess.org/faq

Two questions arise: How many people taking retrovirals have undetectable levels of HIV? Are those people using condoms?

Undetectable is the standard of care and is the definition for the treatment "working". Viral load is checked regularly after starting treatment. If it doesn't become undetectable quickly with first line meds, there may be compliance or resistance issues and treatment approach is changed. With current protocols the main reason for treatment failure is mental health/substance abuse interfering with adherence.

The studies on transmission are using sero-discordant couples who are not using condoms. The evidence/confidence has been building over time with multiple studies in which no transmissions were observed.

http://www.catie.ca/en/catienews/2016-09-06/negligible-risk-...

The HPTN 052 randomized study was halted early because the evidence so strongly favored the treatment arm. In the PARTNER observational study, no transmissions were observed in the study at all. The evidence is very strong.

Re: New antibody attacks 99% of HIV strains

#133

Post by pasbesoin »

MechEStudent wrote: post #93

HIV evolves with amazing (super-villian-ic) speed. Many "cures" attack 99% of cells, or similar. Resistance is evolved during treatment, and is usually uniform within just a few months. It mutates/evolves so fast that given just virus samples, it is possible to determine sequence of infection. I think it needs to kill more than 6-9's before it has a good chance at being a cure.

HIV was/is an early hint at the computational complexity we face in understanding biology.

Not that we should consider in insurmountable nor ungrasp-able. But that we -- or parts of our society and professional institutions -- should lose some of our arrogance.

On the upside, that complexity also harbors enormous opportunity. Just, don't be simplistic about it an let your ignorance take you into disaster.

Re: New antibody attacks 99% of HIV strains

#134

Post by Fomite »

y-c-o-m-b wrote: post #12

This is also good news for people with elevated risks of acquiring HIV (such as people with Herpes). Hopefully they can use similar tactics to eradicate HSV and HPV next.

Given the sheer diversity of HPV strains, I'm doubtful that we'll ever eradicate it, as a number of them are either genuinely or largely benign, and an out and out viral eradication campaign is a long term, sustained and global effort that is invariably very expensive.

Actually getting the vaccines that cover the high risk strains into the developing world is a much more obtainable goal, and even that is extremely challenging for a number of reasons.

Re: New antibody attacks 99% of HIV strains

#135

Post by cloistered »

kentosi wrote: post #115
hashmal wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why is that a bad thing? I don't know for the US, but in other countries you have mandatory tests (hepatitis, gonorrhea, many others) to do every 3 months in order to get the treatment. This alone makes you more protected than people who only use condoms as protection and think they don't need tests.

The concept doesn't exist in the States, sadly. Americans please correct me, but here it's more symptomatic with sexual health: You have a rash/etc, so you go see the doctor. There's no early-detection system where you are reminded to get into a clinic every 2-3 months and get a full test (blood test, swabs, etc) for all the usual suspects: HIV, herpes, chlamydia, etc.

I live in Baltimore, and I'm on PrEP. Everyone I know who takes it, including myself, is required to get tested for STDs every 3 months.

Re: New antibody attacks 99% of HIV strains

#136

Post by Fomite »

nonbel wrote: post #47
Amorymeltzer wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not really, no. Modern antiretrovirals are exceptionally effective, and for those with access[1] HIV/AIDS has become a chronic illness, with nearly-similar lifespans (due mostly to chronic inflammation). We still haven't come close to "eradicating" or curing HIV/AIDS; the issue lies in the virus' insidious biology. HIV is a retrovirus, meaning it incorporates into the target cell's genome, specifically CD4+ T-cells.…

>"an infected person produces billions of virus particles every single day... The oft-cited rule of the thumb is that every base of the viral genome is mutated every day" Isn't it pretty weird that, despite this massive diversity, infections seem to be only caused a single, or sometimes a few, distinct virus particle(s): >"we show that 78% of infections involved single variant transmission and 22% involved multiple v…

Note that not all of those genomes continue to persist. People often have a single dominant strain, but what exactly that strain is varies wildly over time.

Re: New antibody attacks 99% of HIV strains

#137

Post by esm »

otakucode wrote: post #43
soneca wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I disagree. I (annedoctally) heard several times stories about how today's youth (~20yo) doing more unprotected sex than my generation (~35yo) only because HIV "does not kill anymore" . If AIDS is actually curable, I would bet that all other STD would explode in the short term

There is also a sort-of vaccine for HIV called PrEP or something like that. I'm not sure how you get it but I've seen mention of people using it prophylactically (which is what its designed for). And really without HIV, there isn't too much to be afraid of. HPV has a vaccine for many of the dangerous strains, and the other strains infect the vast majority of the populace anyway so even calling them a 'disease' is arg…

PrEP (pre-exposure prophylaxis) is Truvada, which is part of the anti-retroviral regimen given to many HIV(+) patients. The idea is that any virions that enter your body are killed before they have a chance to set up shop.

It is a reasonably simple, safe, and effective drug, so it really should be available from any PCP. However, some community physicians do not prescribe it for one reason or another. HIV/STD clinics are almost always happy to see HIV(-) patients who are interested in PrEP.

Re: New antibody attacks 99% of HIV strains

#138

Post by skygazer »

esm wrote: post #126
carlisle_ wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I believe that's actually somewhat how AIDs treatments have worked. I'm not sure if all are like that but it's pretty much the exact logic.

Yep. Triple therapy is now standard in HIV treatment. The odds of developing mutations to 2-3 agents simultaneously are very low

When I was a teenager, I wrote a connect four game, and my brother would play it. Every time he'd win, I'd jump back into the code. I realized it was a fruitless cat and mouse (not only because the game is trivial) but because of the pacing of my "fixes" -- if I could have had the final version completed before he first played, he might have been stymied, but the iterations seemed to give him an easy path -- he only needed to solve one problem at a time.

Re: New antibody attacks 99% of HIV strains

#139

Post by notadoc »

y-c-o-m-b wrote: post #12

This is also good news for people with elevated risks of acquiring HIV (such as people with Herpes). Hopefully they can use similar tactics to eradicate HSV and HPV next.

From a medical standpoint, HSV and HPV are largely cosmetic and very low priority. HPV is/was perhaps a slightly higher priority because it can rarely lead to certain cancers, but the vaccine Gardasil aims at those types of HPV.
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