dChan - Q Origins Project Archive

Discovery of people who control HIV naturally brings new hope

https://www.afr.com/policy/health-and-education/discovery-of-people-who-control-hiv-naturally-brings-new-hope-20210301-p576wj

Researchers have identified two groups of people in Africa who have naturally controlled the HIV-AIDS virus without any medication.

These so-called “elite controllers” have unique immune responses which can provide clues about how to make better treatments and perhaps a vaccine for HIV.

In the past, sporadic cases of elite HIV controllers have been identified in different parts of the world. Finding just one, has previously launched long strings of innovation.

Now a group of 84 has been identified in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) and another of 28 in neighbouring Cameroon.

While the groups might not seem big, in the context of a new study, they represent between 2.7 and 4.3 per cent of these HIV populations which suggest thousands of others could be elite controllers too.

The origins of HIV have been traced back to this region of Africa and the researchers say there is power in the numbers.

Having so many cases imply suppression is not random but that something is happening at a physiological level.

Controllers maintain low or undetectable viral loads, for 10 to 20 years, before their CD4 cells, the white blood cells that play an important role in the immune system, are eventually depleted. The researchers hope to understand how this happens and then try to use similar mechanisms to prevent infection.

These “elite controllers” have unique immune responses which can provide clues about how to make better treatments and perhaps a vaccine for HIV, says Dr Rodgers. Supplied

Their results, just published in EBioMedicine, a leading biomedical open access journal published by The Lancet, show the same prevalence of controllers has been in place since the beginning of the HIV pandemic in the DRC, well before medications were available.

Understanding the underlying mechanisms of control may also yield insights for the COVID-19 pandemic.

COVID-19 patients with unique responses to the virus could probably teach scientists a lot about how to prevent and treat infections too, says Dr Mary Rodgers, principal scientist at the pharmaceutical giant, Abbott, which led the research.

Dr Rodgers, together with her co-authors from Abbott, Johns Hopkins, University of Missouri and the Université Protestante au Congo, found the results surprising.

Their discovery was largely possible because Abbott’s Global Virus Surveillance Program has tracked samples from 1987 in 45 countries, from people in all walks of life.

The program has focused on characterising different strains of HIV and hepatitis. “We didn’t set out to look for HIV controllers in our study, which is why this was such an unexpected finding,” she says.

“We set out to understand the different kinds of strains of HIV that are circulating in the DRC.”

“Our main function is to make sure that there are no strains of these viruses circulating that wouldn’t be detected by diagnostic tests.”

The program is vigilant because outbreaks grow if diagnostic tests miss a particular strain.

Abbott’s decades of experience with surveillance and its need to modify its tests to deal with variants, enabled it to respond quickly in the latest pandemic by creating a range of tests for the virus that causes COVID-19.

While it’s surveillance program now includes COVID-19, some of its tests are in use in Australia.

Since the beginning of the global AIDS pandemic in 1981, it’s estimated 76 million people have been infected with HIV and about half, 38 million, have died of AIDS-related illness.

By comparison, since the COVID-19 pandemic began a year ago, more than 113 million people have been infected and 2.5 million have died.

While the world hopes for a vaccine against COVID-19, ranks of researchers are working on antiviral drugs as a fallback, with some seeking guidance from what happened with HIV.

>>13190836

HIV findings in DR Congo 'give hope for cure'

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-56255111#:~:text=The%20discovery%20of%20a%20large%20group%20of%20people,people%20with%20HIV%20are%20able%20to%20do%20so.

The discovery of a large group of people whose bodies naturally control HIV without taking medication is leading to hopes of an eventual cure, scientists say.

The study found as many as 4% of HIV carriers in the Democratic Republic of Congo were able to suppress the virus.

Typically less than 1% of people with HIV are able to do so.

This could serve as springboard for further research to develop a vaccine or new treatments to tackle the virus that causes Aids, researchers say.

"When we first started to see the data coming in from the study we were surprised, but we were also elated," Mary Rodgers, the study's lead scientist, told the BBC.

"This could mean that this is something that we can actually cure," she said.

The findings, published in eBioMedicine which is part of The Lancet family of medical journals, looked at samples taken FROM people living with HIV between 1987 and 2019.

The team included scientists from pharmaceutical company Abbott, Université Protestante au Congo, Johns Hopkins, the US National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, and University of Missouri - Kansas City.

media captionMary Rodgers: "This group of people gives us hope"

Dr Rodgers, head of Abbott's global viral surveillance programme, said the group in DR Congo was the biggest detected in one country - between 2.7% and 4.3% . Another 1% of people living with HIV in Cameroon were also identified as controlling the virus well without medication.

"This has never really been seen before, typically we would find less than 1% of all people with HIV who are able to suppress the virus naturally."

Currently, most people living with HIV have to take anti-retroviral medicines daily to suppress the virus and reduce their viral load.

It is not yet known how the so-called "elite controllers" discovered in DR Congo are able to suppress their HIV infection.

But Dr Rodgers said understanding how the group was able to maintain low or undetectable viral loads would be crucial to controlling the virus.

However she stressed the need for more research, while pointing to previous studies that showed this group of people potentially lose their protection as the disease progresses.

HIV came to global attention in the 1980s. It has infected 76 million people since then and 38 million people are living with the virus, Abbott says.

It is believed to have originated in what is now DR Congo a century ago, and today HIV disproportionately affects women in sub-Saharan Africa.

~~Maza Russian cybercriminal forum suffers data breach~~

https://www.zdnet.com/article/maza-russian-cybercriminal-forum-suffers-data-breach/

The Maza cybercriminal forum has reportedly suffered a data breach leading to the leak of user information.

On March 3, Flashpoint researchers detected the breach on Maza once known as Mazafaka which has been online since at least 2003.

Maza is a closed and heavily-restricted forum for Russian-speaking threat actors. The community has been connected to carding the trafficking of stolen financial data and payment card information and the discussion of topics including malware, exploits, spam, money laundering, and more.

Once the forum was compromised, the attackers who took the forum over posted a warning message claiming "Your data has been leaked / This forum has been hacked."

Information including user IDs, usernames, email addresses, messenger app links including Skype, MSN, and Aim and passwords, both hashed and obfuscated – were included in the data leak.

Flashpoint told ZDNet roughly 2,000 accounts were exposed.

During discussions concerning the breach, some users say they are intending to find another forum, whereas others claim the database leaked is old or "incomplete," according to the researchers.

Flashpoint does not know at this time who hijacked the forum, beyond the likelihood that an online translator may have been used to post the warning message – implying it may not have been a Russian-speaker unless mistakes were deliberate in an effort at misdirection.

Maza was previously hacked in 2011. Reports suggested at the time that the forum was compromised by a rival group, DirectConnection, and data belonging to over 2,000 users was leaked. Shortly after, DirectConnection was attacked in its turn.

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