Cancer drug works in HIV treatment: Researchers

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Cancer drug works in HIV treatment: Researchers

A 3D rendered image of the HIV virus

Researchers have used a drug used against cancer to activate hibernating HIV virus, which is then released from infected cells and turns into a sitting duck target.

The Danish scientists used Romidepsin, a drug used to treat rare lymphomas, to kick the virus out of the cells. HIV is known to hibernate in so-called “reservoirs” in the body, and reemerge to infect patients.

“We have now shown that we can activate a hibernating virus with Romidepsin and that the activated virus moves into the bloodstream in large amounts,” the researchers said in a statement.

“It means getting the virus out of its hiding place and once we get it we can kill it,” said Steven Deeks, a leading HIV researcher at the University of California.

The Joint United Nations Programme on HIV and AIDS has said proper action could spell and end to the existence of AIDS as an epidemic by 2030.

Africa remains the hardest-hit continent, with 1.1 million deaths in 2013, 1.5 million new infections, and 24.7 million people living with HIV.

The agency said, though, that global AIDS-related deaths and new HIV infections have fallen by over a third in a decade.

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