New weapon in fight against HIV infection

After many years of fruitless research, scientists are on the verge of a sensational discovery...

A new method of preventing HIV infection

Currently, the best method of preventing the spread of HIV is the use of condoms, a monogamous relationship with an uninfected partner or complete sexual abstinence. Condoms are a fairly effective method of preventing HIV infection, but they can still be torn, they destroy spontaneity and reduce sexual pleasure, and women who plan to get pregnant can’t rely on such protection. In addition, most people aren’t thrilled to abstain from sex completely. In the last decades, scientists therefore put a great into research to discover a better way of preventing the infection. Unfortunately, they've been unsuccessfully to date, but the recent experiments on primates show that they’re close to a revolutionary discovery in terms of the treatment that would prevent HIV infection so as to destroy the virus before it enters the body.

The solution is to block the immune response

Until now, scientists have had difficulties in destroying the virus without damaging the person as well. Some treatments even made it easier for the virus to spread because of microscopic cracks in the vaginal walls. The study published in the journal Nature, however, reveals a harmless treatment that prevents the spread of the infection in monkeys and it may be effective in humans as well. Dr. Ashley Haase and her team of the University of Minnesota have discovered that a few epithelial cells on the cervix of female macaques are the first point of entry for SIV (a primate version of HIV present in monkeys). After the entry, the immune cells closest to the cervix respond by producing the molecules that trigger an infection and dispatch T-cells to the cervix. These cells would destroy an intruder in normal circumstances, but they are, unfortunately, used by SIV and HIV to infect a new host. For that reason, researchers decided to find a treatment that’ll prevent the spread of AIDS so as to prevent the immune cells, which are hijacked by the virus, from being dispatched to the site of the infection.

The miraculous treatment

During the research on the syndrome of toxic shock, that is, a bacterial infection that can pose a threat to the health and even life of women who use tampons, researchers already found chemical compounds that prevent a vaginal infection and thus block the response of the immune system. Dr. Ashley Haase decided to research the compound called glycerol monolaurate (GML), which is safe for humans, since it’s also used in vegetable oil, deodorants and the food industry. Mrs. Haase and her colleagues tested GML-based lubricants on five female rhesus macaque monkeys injected with SIV and later treated vaginally with GML. Four of the five monkeys didn’t contract the virus! On the other hand, all the monkeys in the control group without GML protection developed the infection when exposed to the virus.

Many questions still have no answer

The findings of the study are very promising, but researchers still have to find answers to many important questions. Namely, it hasn’t been established if this bacteriological gel also protects men against the infection. In addition, researchers still haven’t found if it protects against SIV infection as well as HIV infection. It’s also unclear if GML prevents the infection in the event that a woman already has an infected cervix because of other infections and if blocking the response of her immune system causes a greater risk of contracting other infections. In any case, a lot of experiments will have to be performed on animals before GML can be tested on humans. In the future, a completely simple and cheap protection against HIV infection may be available which will save millions of lives around the world.