Why do some people with HIV never progress to AIDS?
Researchers have found that 1 percent of HIV-positive people are “nonprogressors”: they seem to be able to fight HIV so successfully that it doesn’t progress to AIDS. These people maintain stable and very low levels of the virus in their blood. Many have been healthy and HIV positive for more than a decade without receiving any treatment at all, while some get sick but experience a very slow progression of the disease. So far, scientists have found several explanations: Some of the nonprogressors have a particular gene pattern that allows their body to identify and kill HIV virions more frequently than most people. Others seem to have CD4 cells that are more resistant to being infected by HIV, while still others have a strain of HIV that’s missing viral protein R (Vpr), which reduces its ability to infect CD4 cells. Each type of long-term nonprogressor offers clues for the future of HIV treatment, but as yet of there have been no major breakthroughs.
