July 10, 2002
Some people may be producing immune responses that protect them from HIV infection, according to two reports presented Monday at the 14th International AIDS Conference. The reports require confirmation, but at first glance were signs that it is possible to build immunity against the virus -- long a goal of vaccine research.
Dr. Anthony Kebba of the Uganda Virus Research Institute in Entebbe described the case of eight couples he has studied. All involved husbands infected for many years with HIV and wives who have never contracted the virus. The men had what are considered active infections, with a viral load high enough to pose considerable risk of infection to the wives. Kebba's team examined samples of tissue taken from the wives' vaginas after three days of sexual abstinence. In five of the women, vaginal tissue samples were found to contain antibodies. In test tubes, those antibodies attacked HIV. "Our results confirm that heterosexual exposure to the virus does not always lead to infection," Kebba said.
A Pasteur Institute team led by Dr. X. Truong in Ho Chi Minh City found similar results in long-term Vietnamese intravenous drug abusers. She analyzed blood samples from 45 IV drug users who had been injecting narcotics for more than ten years, but who had never become infected with HIV, even though they had contracted other infections: 82 percent had hepatitis B; 100 percent had hepatitis C; and 80 percent had the rare HTLV cancer virus.
Adapted from:
Newsday (New York City)
07.09.02; Laurie Garrett
This article was provided by U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. It is a part of the publication CDC HIV/Hepatitis/STD/TB Prevention News Update. Visit the CDC's website to find out more about their activities, publications and services.