Why HIV is now resistant to antiretroviral therapy – Scientists
A team of international scientists led by Northwestern University found that HIV is still replicating in lymphoid tissue, even when it is undetectable in the blood of patients on antiretroviral drugs. The findings provide a critical new perspective on how HIV persists in the body, despite potent antiretroviral therapy. “We now have a path to a cure,” said corresponding author Dr. Steven Wolinsky, chief of infectious diseases at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine and a Northwestern Medicine physician, in an online report. “The challenge is to deliver drugs at clinically effective concentrations to where the virus continues to replicate within the patient.” The paper will be published January 27 in the journal, Nature. Combinations of potent antiretroviral drugs quickly suppress HIV to undetectable levels in the bloodstream of most patients, but HIV persists in a viral reservoir within lymphoid tissue in the body. The virus rapidly rebounds in the blood if p