Scientists Say Claims of HIV Cure "Within Months" Misleading

It has been nearly half a year since news sources inaccurately reported that Danish scientists were "within months" of finding a cure for HIV for their ongoing, and as-yet-unpublished, research of histone deacetylase (HDAC) inhibitors. Although a cure is not on the immediate horizon, the Danish vaccine trial continues to look at HDAC inhibitors -- and even a cancer drug -- as a means to flush HIV from the viral reservoir, where it hides from antiretrovirals even during successful therapy.

"I am almost certain that we will be successful in releasing the reservoirs of HIV," said Dr. Ole Søgaard, a senior researcher at the Aarhus University Hospital in Denmark, who is leading the study. "The challenge will be getting the patients’ immune system to recognize the virus and destroy it. This depends on the strength and sensitivity of individual immune systems."

With antiretroviral drugs, people can live a long life with HIV. But if medications are stopped, HIV reservoirs become active and start to produce the virus. Doctors are now trying to find ways to destroy the HIV virus that is hiding in this reservoir.
In their attempt at a cure, the Danish researchers and other non-Danish collaborators are in the middle of a Phase I human trial involving 15 participants. Søgaard warned that a cure was not the same as a preventative vaccine, and noted the importance of continuing education of safer sex and injection drug use risks.

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