Study: HIV cannot be eradicated from body

August 28, 1999
Web posted at: 11:54 a.m. EDT (1554 GMT)

In this story: Virus lurks in body's 'reservoirs' A tough, expensive treatment RELATED STORIES, SITES

BALTIMORE (CNN) -- HIV, the virus that causes AIDS, cannot be eradicated from a patient's body even when it is undetectable in the blood, according to a study released Saturday by the National Institutes of Health.

Researchers had hoped that after taking anti-HIV drugs for more than a year, patients with HIV could stop treatment and the virus would not return. The study results appear to indicate that patients may need to continue drug therapy for the long term.

"It's going to be very difficult to take somebody off therapy and feel that the virus is not going to bounce back," said Dr. Anthony Fauci, who headed the research team.

The study results were made public at a virology conference in Baltimore on Saturday.

Fauci and colleagues followed 18 HIV-positive patients who had been on the drugs for more than a year and in whom HIV had been reduced to undetectable levels. The researchers then took the patients off the drugs to see if the virus came back: It did, in all 18 patients, within three weeks.

In some cases, a different form of the virus showed up than was originally found in the patient. Fauci said this showed researchers that there are places in the body where the virus can hide.

Scientists had calculated that the HIV virus was capable of hiding in body reservoirs unreachable by drugs for as long as 60 years.

They had hoped to be able to flush the HIV from the reservoirs, either with the help of a drug called Interleukin-2 or with the passage of time. The scientists then thought the drugs would kill the virus as it emerged from the reservoirs.

"It does tell us that, given the currently available regimens that we have of antiviral drugs, we are not going to eliminate or eradicate the virus from individuals," Fauci said.

When those patients who chose to resume therapy were put back on medication, the virus was again suppressed to undetectable levels.

But not everyone chose to resume the tough and costly HIV regimen.

An HIV-positive patient may need to take as many as 30 pills a day to suppress the virus, and the side effects can be debilitating. Many patients suffer nausea, vomiting, fatigue, diarrhea, and elevated triglyceride levels.

The drugs cost an average of $15,000 annually, putting them out of the reach of most of the world's HIV positive patients.

Fauci cautioned that patients should not try stopping the anti-HIV medication outside a clinical trial, because they may become resistant to certain drugs and not be able to go back on them.