An ideal antibody cocktail would ease symptoms and improve the
prognosis of infected individuals — it could even work as a preventative measure, protecting healthcare workers before they enter an infected area.
And a recent study of therapeutic itineraries
of infected individuals in rural Gambia, led by Sarah O'Neill of the Institute of Tropical Medicine in Antwerp, shows at least one reason it's often hard to find and treat them earlier.
Together, the findings from the NIH - funded SMART study reported in 2006, HPTN 052 study in 2011 and START study this year conclusively demonstrate that starting ART promptly after HIV diagnosis protects the
health of the infected individual while preventing HIV transmission to uninfected sexual partners, the authors write.
While about two -
thirds of infected individuals can eventually clear the virus, it persists and can cause a wide range of health problems in the remainder, Ferris says.
Curtailing the epidemic But Osterholm says that the ongoing discussion of such experimental drugs and vaccines is diverting international attention away from the measures that he said are needed to stop the outbreak — for instance, tracing the
contacts of infected individuals and deploying teams of health workers to make sure all affected individuals are diagnosed.
O'Neill and his colleagues are setting up such field trials, bringing wild, uninfected mosquitoes into outdoor
cages of infected individuals, to see if the Wolbachia strain will take over under natural conditions.
Not only does it suggest new targets for drug development, but it also puts forward new behavioral changes that may be taken on the
part of the infected individual in order to decrease the chances of developing a major disease and increase longevity.
They compared the amounts of hundreds of molecules found in urine samples of infected and healthy Africans and discovered one striking difference: An unknown molecule was present at levels six times higher in the urine
samples of infected individuals than in samples from healthy people.
Furthermore, individuals were tested for infections with the so - called Wolbachia bacteria, as an infection with these bacteria can lead to the fact that the
mtDNA of infected individuals will strongly differ from the mtDNA of non-infected Large Blues.
While researchers could not identify how a particular animal became infected, treponemal infections are known to be transmitted by contact with the skin
lesion of an infected individual, so a pet macaque could potentially pick up the bacteria, said Lisa Jones - Engel, a UW research assistant professor of anthropology who led the study.
Tuberculosis (TB) is a curable and preventable disease caused by the bacterium Mycobacterium tuberculosis and most often affects the
lungs of infected individuals.
In early stages of HIV infection, HIV predominantly uses the CCR5 co-receptor, whereas during the disease progression HIV uses either CXCR4 alone or in combination with CCR5 in about 50 % of the infected individuals [18, 19].
Achieving the NHAS targets would achieve successful virologic suppression in 72
percent of infected individuals, compared with current estimates of 49 percent.
He also will review how treatment of HIV - infected people early in the course of their infection can dramatically reduce the risk of transmitting HIV to an uninfected sexual partner, while simultaneously protecting the
health of the infected individual.
The Cured is set in the aftermath of a zombie outbreak in which 75 %
of infected individuals have been cured and are being reintegrated back into society.