A new drug that can potentially cure HIV has been discovered. A team of scientists including a Kenyan successfully eliminated the virus from mice.
An assistant professor of pharmacology at the University of Nebraska Medical Centre (UNMC), Dr Benson Edagwa and researchers at the Lewis Katz School of Medicine at Temple University came closer to getting the cure for HIV.
The team used improved ARV and powerful gene-editing technique to limit the virus activities and eventually eliminate it from infected cells.
In Kenya, at least 1.5 million people are infected with the deadly disease. Over 380, 000 deaths caused by HIV/AIDs have been recorded.
In the research that involved 29 mice, the team employed gene-editing technology (CRISPR) and LASER ART, a therapeutic treatment to eliminate the HIV DNA from the infected cells.
The results found out that no traces of the virus in 30 per cent of the animals.
“This observation is the first step toward showing for the first time, to my knowledge, that HIV is a curable disease,” said Kamel Khalili, one of the participants in the research team.
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