More than 120,000 babies around the world acquire HIV each year. For millions of people living with the virus, controlling the infection means taking treatment for life, provided those medications are accessible and affordable.
A new study led by Oregon Health & Science University points to a potentially very different approach. Researchers found that a combination of therapies administered to newborns within three days of birth could permanently eliminate the virus.
The findings were published in Nature Microbiology.
"The really exciting part is that it could go to clinical trials immediately to eliminate HIV infection in newborns," said co-lead author Jonah Sacha, Ph.D., professor and chief of pathobiology and immunology at OHSU's Oregon National Primate Research Center and Vaccine and Gene Therapy Institute. "The next step after that is to test if this can work in newly exposed adults."
The work brought together numerous collaborators and involved nonhuman primates at both the Oregon and California national primate research centers.
