Study finds 1 in 10 HIV-infected children are immune to AIDS
A new study has found that one in 10 children possess a rare “monkey-like” genetic system making them immune to AIDS (Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome). The children’s immune systems “kept calm” amidst high numbers of the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) present in the children’s blood.
According to the study, 60% of untreated HIV-infected children will die within two and a half years, but monkeys infected with the HIV equivalent, simian immunodeficiency virus (SIV), will survive.
The virus eventually wipes out the immune system, leaving the body vulnerable to other infections, what is known as AIDS.
The researchers, led by Professor Philip Goulder from the University of Oxford in the UK, analyzed the blood of 170 children from South Africa who were infected with HIV. None of the children had any antiretroviral therapy yet had not developed AIDS.
The children, called paediatric non-progressors (PNPs), were found carrying thousands of the human immunodeficiency viruses in every milliliter of their blood. However, despite the high volume of the virus in their blood, the patients’ immune systems showed no sign of increased activity and resisted the spread of the disease.
In normal cases of infected people, high loads of the virus in the blood will send their immune systems into overdrive, trying to fight the infection, or simply make them seriously ill, but neither had happened in the children.
According to Goulder, the children’s immune systems were ignoring the presence of the virus, adding that fighting or “waging war” against the virus is the wrong approach. Counter-intuitively, not attacking the virus seems to save the immune system.
HIV kills white blood cells, which are the warriors of the immune system. When the body’s defenses go into overdrive, even more of them can be killed by chronic levels of inflammation.
The professor also said that HIV disease “is not so much to do with HIV, but with the immune response to it”.
The way the 10% of children cope with the virus also showed striking similarities to the way more than 40 non-human primate species cope with SIV, according to the scientists.
The study also adds that the defense against AIDS is almost unique to children.Adult humans’ immune systems tend to go all-out to finish off the virus in a campaign that nearly always ends in failure.
Children have a relatively tolerant immune system, which becomes more aggressive in adulthood – chickenpox, for example, is far more severe in adults due to the way the immune system reacts.
But this does mean that as the protected children age and their immune system matures, there is a risk of them developing AIDS.
Goulder said that further research is needed to find out more about how HIV disease develops. He also added that further research to establish the exact mechanism present in the children may lead to new treatment approaches that block the pathway between HIV infection and HIV disease.
