Posted on 03/27/2005 8:21:47 PM PST by Flavius
WITHIN days of infection, the AIDS virus destroys more than half of the immune cells that might recognise and help fight it, US researchers have found.
The discovery might force a re-evaluation of how to tackle the deadly infection.
Two separate studies in monkeys showed that SIV, the monkey version of the human immunodeficiency virus or HIV, attacked CD4 memory T-cells right away and wiped out more than half of them.
"The findings may require a rethink of strategies to design HIV drugs and vaccines," said Dr Mario Roederer, of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases.
The findings will be difficult to replicate in people, because most people do not know the moment they are infected with the AIDS virus, which gradually destroys the immune system, leaving patients vulnerable to numerous infections.
But SIV is a good model and works in a similar way.
Both teams, whose findings were reported in the journal Nature, worked with monkeys that they infected with SIV.
They then watched what happened to their immune cells.
Right away the virus attacked the CD4 T-cells that had the correct configuration for the virus. Normally during an infection such cells would recognise and latch onto an invader, helping other components of the immune system destroy it.
But HIV is different because it targets the immune system, and the two studies have revealed how quickly it makes it impossible for its victims to launch a defence.
Dr Roederer's team used new, sensitive tests to show just how the virus moved so quickly.
"Specifically, 30 per cent to 60 per cent of CD4 memory T-cells throughout the body are infected by SIV at the peak of infection, and most of these infected cells disappear within four days," the researchers reported.
"Furthermore, our data demonstrate that the depletion of memory CD4 T-cells occurs to a similar extent in all tissues. As a consequence, over one-half of all memory CD4 T-cells in SIV-infected macaques are destroyed directly by viral infection during the acute phase - an insult that certainly heralds subsequent immunodeficiency."
Any attempt to vaccinate against HIV or to provide efficient treatment must stop this process right away.
Dr Ashley Haase and colleagues at the University of Minnesota Medical School made similar findings. Not only did the virus directly kill the CD4 cells, they found, but it also causesd them to them to commit cell suicide.
There is no cure for HIV infection, which killed more than 3 million people globally last year.
Drug cocktails can control the infection, but it comes back quickly if they are stopped. More than two dozen vaccines are being tested, but experts do not expect any of them to prevent HIV infection in substantial numbers of people.
Yeah but how would you know within the first three or four days that you have caught it. It may stay dormant in your system for years.
One of the biggest challenges faced by researchers has been getting the monkeys to do each other in the butt....
Similar conditions exist in Africa. People frequently drink from the same streams where they defecate and urinate. Men also engage in anal sex with women more frequently. This gives a similar profile: Already depressed immune system combined with high-risk behavior.
My reaction.....DUH, how many Billions of $$$ in federally funded research did it take to uncover this unsuprising fact?
It's been known for many years, predating AIDS, that "T-cells" are the key resource in the immune systems ability to fight infections - both bacteriological and viral. I'm no research biologist(nor do I have ambitions to play one on TV)....but thats the first place I would look!
What government researchers invariably discover, is that more government funded research will be neccessary.
Joe 6-pack nailed it. Monkeys seem to be both smarter and more hygienic than people.
ping.
Ping
Why? We have plenty of lawyers....
Why then does the infection rate by age fall from birth through puberty, and then begin to rise again, in Africa, Haiti, and Brazil?
The infection rate by age of all vectorborne diseases rises with age, as you would expect.
HIV infection does not.
They could try avoiding the BEHAVIOR that spreads it!
And yet, after 48hrs. of nonstop reruns of TeleTubbies and Sponge Bob Squarepants, the monkeys were gleefully copulating with members of the same sex...
Homosexual Agenda Ping.
A little more about HIV and how it starts to destroy the immune system almost immediately. And this is not the super-strain.
Where is that super-strain, anyway? If it really was what they said it was, I would think a lot more men would have presented with it, since the one (or was it two?) men who had it admitted hundreds of "partners" in the last few months.
Despite the agitation of "gay" activists, if a person is married (to a member of the opposite sex - !), monogamous, was abstinent before marriage, and doesn't get any blood transfusions or inject themselves with drugs - there is ZERO chance of getting AIDS.
Unless there is an accident and someone drips infected blood or body fluids on them. That is why cops and medical personnel wear gloves.
Let DirtyHarryY2K and me know if you want on/off this pinglist.
You are talking about personal responsibility. We simply can't have that kind of talk. Next thing you know you'll be labeled a "homophobe." Tsk tsk tsk.
The religion of the homosexual, ie, I want sex with anyone 24/7/365 is the cause of the spread. Until they change their behavior, AID/HIV will continue to kill them like the grim reaper.
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