Promising new breakthrough treatments and potential cures for human immunodeficiency virus (HIV), including non-pill antiretroviral therapy (ART), broadly neutralizing antibodies, immunotherapy, and gene therapy were discussed at the Healthcare Transformation Talks at the Arab Health 2023 in Dubai.
With 38.4 million people living with HIV and 1.5 million new infections in 2021, the HIV pandemic remains a major global problem. Although a 2022 UNAIDS report shows a 30% decline in infections in the decade since 2010, regions including the Middle East & North Africa, Eastern Europe, and Central Asia have seen infection rates are increasing due to limited access to prevention services and limited access to ART.
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With 70% of people with HIV globally receiving effective ART in 2021, the advances in treatment modalities have been remarkable. Today, patients only take a single daily tablet, and last year, we saw the introduction of the first non-pill long-acting treatment where patients receive just six injections a year to stop the transmission of the virus. While the current landscape for HIV treatment is characterized by excellent daily treatment with ART and long-acting ART, in the future, long-acting treatment will involve broadly neutralizing antibodies.
According to Professor Sharon Lewin, Director, Doherty Institute, Melbourne, Australia, and President of the International AIDS Society (IAS), who addressed the audience at the Healthcare Transformation Talks: “With Single Cell Technologies transforming our understanding of HIV latency (the clinically latent infection stage, also referred to as asymptomatic HIV infection), the current strategies for achieving an HIV cure include latency reversal, immunotherapy, and gene therapy.
Lewin added: “While we are unsure when a cure will be available, we expect that the first approach to achieve HIV remission will be with combination immune therapy and an ex vivo cure with gene or cellular therapy. Ultimately, an in vivo cure is what we are after, and a single-shot cure for everyone with HIV remains a long way off, but it is where we are headed.”
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