(Newswire.net — October 7, 2016) —Scientists have analyzed the blood of 170 children from South Africa with HIV who have never had treatment nor developed AIDS. The tests showed that the respondents had tens of thousands of human immunodeficiency viruses in every milliliter of their blood. Normally this would push their immune system over the limit of endurance as the body would be trying to fight the infection, but that was not happening. The fact that the immune system had not attacked the virus, saved it.
According to the study published in the Science Translational Medicine, every one in ten children has an immune system that keeps them from developing AIDS.
The study found that the immune system in these children remained inactive, similar to monkeys, which prevented it from being wiped out.
An untreated HIV infection is fatal in 60 percent of children within two and a half years, but it is interesting that an identical infection in monkeys is not fatal. This finding could lead to a new immune therapy for HIV infection.
Professor Philip Goulder, one of the researchers from the University of Oxford, explained to the BBC that the immune system of these children ignores the virus for as long as possible. Warfare against the virus in most cases is absolutely the wrong thing, the professor said.
HIV kills white blood cells, the immune system’s fighters. And when the body’s defences go into overdrive, even more of these cells are killed. According to Goulder, one of the things to come out of this new study is that the disease is not so much to do with HIV, but to the immune response to it.
The way that 10 percent of children cope with the virus has striking similarities to the way more than 40 non-human primate species cope with simian immunodeficiency virus or SIV.
They have had tens of thousands of years to develop a way to fight the infection. This defence against AIDS is almost unique to children.
In adult humans, the immune system tends to go all out in an effort to finish the virus, which in most cases ends in failure. Children have relatively tolerant immune systems, which become more aggressive in adulthood – measles, for example, is far more severe in adults due to the way their immune system responds.This does not mean that as they get older these kids will develop AIDS. Some will, but some will not get AIDS.
Dr Ann Chahroudi and Dr Guido Silvestri, from Emory University in the United States, explained that the study may have found the very earliest signs of coevolution of HIV in humans, the BBC reports.
They added that it is not known whether it would be clinically safe for these newly identified HIV infected paediatric non-progressors to remain off-therapy.
“This assessment is further complicated by the fact that prevention of HIV transmission to sexual partners becomes relevant in adolescence”, they added in a commentary.
Prof Goulder said that he believes these findings in children could ultimately help rebalance the immune system in all HIV patients.