HIV Virus May Be Defeated

AIDS is a medical condition. A person is diagnosed with AIDS when their immune system is too weak to fight off infections.

Since AIDS was first identified in the early 1980s, an unprecedented number of people have been affected by the global AIDS epidemic. 

Today, there are an estimated 35.3 million people living with HIV and AIDS worldwide. 

Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome, shortened AIDS, is caused by HIV. Some people may refer to AIDS as advanced HIV infection. HIV is a virus that gradually attacks immune system cells. 

As HIV progressively damages these cells, the body becomes more vulnerable to infections, which it will have difficulty in fighting off. It is at the point of very advanced HIV infection that a person is said to have AIDS.

If left untreated, it can take around ten years before HIV has damaged the immune system enough for AIDS to develop.

In 1984, Dr. Robert Gallo (ABOVE) co-discovered HIV as the cause of AIDS, then went on to pioneer the blood test that detects the virus.

Now, 31 years later, his team at the University of Maryland School of Medicine's Institute of Human Virology is beginning human trials this month on a potentially revolutionary HIV vaccine.

While many other vaccines target specific strains of HIV, the treatment that the institute has developed takes a different approach. 

It attempts to block the virus before it can invade the body's T-cells (a central component of the body's immune system) and mutate, at which point it becomes invisible to the body's immune system and much harder to treat. 

Should it prove successful, this vaccine would offer protection against a large class of viruses collectively known as "HIV-1."

"Our HIV/AIDS vaccine candidate is designed to bind to the virus at the moment of infection, when many of the different strains of HIV found around the world can be neutralized,” Gallo said in a statement. “We believe this mechanism is a major prerequisite for an effective HIV preventive vaccine.”

Gallo told Science magazine the vaccine has been in development for 15 years. This first phase of the trial process will last about a year, draw from a field of 60 candidates and assess the drug's basic safety in humans.       Read more: