快猫短视频

THE spread of HIV could be greatly reduced by drugs or vaccines that merely
lower the level of virus in the blood, a study in Uganda suggests. The people in
the study no longer seemed to be infectious when the virus was below a certain
level.

Thomas Quinn of the Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, Maryland, and his
colleagues spent over two years following 415 Ugandan couples, each with one
HIV-infected partner. Despite education about HIV and condoms, 22 per cent of
previously uninfected individuals became HIV positive. The researchers found
that the level of HIV in the blood of the infected partner was the most
important predictor of infection鈥攖he risk of transmission doubled with
every 10-fold rise in HIV concentration.

Quinn points out that drugs that lower 鈥渧iral load鈥� are too expensive for
developing nations. 鈥淲hat we need is a therapeutic vaccine,鈥� he says. A vaccine
that doesn鈥檛 completely protect against HIV infection could still boost the
immune system enough to lower viral load and prevent transmission to others.

Another recent but unpublished study of a thousand couples in Zambia found a
similar link between load and transmission, says Grace Aldrovandi of the
University of Alabama at Birmingham. She agrees that a therapeutic vaccine is
desperately needed. 鈥淚 hope his data and our own will get people more interested
in talking about it.鈥�