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PETALING JAYA: An unexpectedly high number of people in the Democratic Republic of the Congo have been found to be “elite controllers” of HIV (human immunodeficiency virus).
This means that your immune system has been able to naturally suppress your HIV infection to the point where the virus is not detectable in your bloodstream.
They are known to be infected because they have antibodies to HIV circulating in their blood, although they have never received any antiretroviral therapy (ART).
Talking to The star Via video call, study co-author Dr. Mary Rodgers said: “This study where we found a large number of HIV controllers was really unexpected for us.
“And when we saw the large number of people who meet this category of HIV controller, who can control HIV naturally without taking any drugs, we found that this was really groundbreaking.”
He said this discovery provides new hope that potential cures and vaccines will be unlocked for this chronic infection that can eventually develop into fatal AIDS (acquired immune deficiency syndrome).
“For me, the million dollar question is: what makes these people unique? How can they achieve this naturally?
“Perhaps there is something new and different about the immune response of these particular patients, and that is certainly a starting point,” he said.
The study, published online today (March 2, 2021) in the journal EBioMedicine, reported that 11% of the 10,457 people, who provided blood samples during the 2017-2019 period, were HIV positive.
The study authors noted that this percentage alone was higher than the previous estimate for HIV in the Congo, which was 2.86%.
Within the HIV-positive group, 2.7-4.3% were found to be natural elite controllers of the virus.
On average, studies around the world have found that the prevalence of elite HIV controllers is less than 1%.
“This would make Congolese five to ten times that number,” said Dr. Rodgers, who runs the Global Viral Surveillance Program at US medical device and healthcare company Abbott, which provided the data for the study.
He noted that this represents thousands of potential elite HIV controllers in the Congo who can now be studied to determine trends and similarities between them that allow them to fight the virus.
Having found a 2017 study from Cameroon in the Journal of Virology Reporting that 2.95% of their HIV-positive participants were elite controllers of the infection, the study authors also analyzed previous data from the same country collected by Abbott’s Global Viral Surveillance Program from 2004 to 2017.
They reported that estimates based on these data suggest that 2.5-5.8% of Cameroonians could also be elite HIV controllers.
The Democratic Republic of the Congo and Cameroon are neighboring countries.
Dr. Rodgers pointed out that since HIV has its origins in that part of the world, it would not be surprising if the ability to control HIV could also come from there.
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