0 Question: Is an Effective HIV Vaccine Feasible? Keywords: health, HIV, medicine, vaccination Asked by beth5000 to Claire, Matt, Sam on 27 Jun 2013.
Claire Lee answered on 27 Jun 2013:
I think so! Actually a short while ago there were two HIV breakthroughs in the same week! One was a mom who gave birth to an HIV+ baby 2 years ago. The baby was put on a special new antiretroviral cocktail, and today shows no sign of HIV http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn23276-more-hiv-cured-first-a-baby-now-14-adults.html#.Ucy01BYmalI
The other was having to do with the use of bee venom – scientists have just discovered that a part of bee venom destroys the HIV virus! http://www.sciencenews.org/view/generic/id/348990/description/Bee_venom_component_might_offer_HIV_protection
Also – about 1% of people are naturally immune to HIV because the have a particular protective gene. Maybe once we could figure out how to use that information, we could all get this gene (or something)?
So it’s hopefully just a matter of time.
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