HOPES of developing a vaccine against AIDS have been raised following the news of nine children who appear to have fought off the HIV virus. However a consultant immunologist warned that while the cases might mark the start of a promising chapter of research a breakthrough was still a long way off.
The children, from Italy, Belgium and Sweden, were born infected with the AIDS virus but later tests found they had all turned HIV negative. Two of those who tested negative were found to have the virus still in them. However like the others, these children stayed healthy and seemed to have normal immune systems.
A paper on the findings appeared in the latest edition of the medical journal the Lancet. The researchers, including doctors from the Institute of Child Health in London, suggested that the children in whom HIV had disappeared had somehow cleared the virus from their bodies.
It was thought the other two may have developed a tolerance to HIV so that their immune systems no longer made antibodies against the virus. The research was an incidence study and did not examine the physical processes involved. The doctors said more work was needed to clarify the mechanisms underlying their findings.
Dr Stephan Stroble, consultant immunologist at the Institute of Child Health who was not involved in the research said "This could be the beginning of a more promising episode of research, but we are still far, far away from producing an AIDS vaccine."
The reason why the HIV vii us is so deadly is that it mutates at a very fast rate. The body's immune system is unable to adapt quickly enough to the different mutations to meet the threat.
Dr Stroble said "Viruses cause an immune response which makes "killer" cells that destroy the invading organism. Until now this cytotoxic (cell destroying) response was not killing the AIDS virus. It might be worth looking at the cytotoxic response in these children. This would be the beginning of the investigation.
"You might identify what is the activating pathology, and then you would have to develop a vaccine with produces the same kind of immune response. But there are so many factors that have to be taken into account. A lot of work has to be done."
A spokesman for the National AIDS Trust, a charity which Coordinates voluntary AIDS groups said "The cases of these children are exciting and do give us hope. What this is saying is that the route to finding a cure for AIDS is by investigating how the virus works within the body. We need to know what was different about these children's bodies that allowed them to fight the virus off"
He said many AIDS victims had prolonged their lives by using alternative techniques to improve resistance to the disease.