HIV can heal by itself, can it happen?

Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV) can be handled if treated properly. Starting from antiretroviral therapy (ART) to taking drugs can help make the sufferer's body healthier, but it needs to be done for life. With so many treatments that need to be underwent, can HIV be cured by itself?

Is it true that HIV can heal by itself?

The treatment and medication undertaken by HIV patients is not intended to "cure" their bodies of the virus. However, this method is used so that the patient's body remains fit for daily activities.

Until now, there are no drugs and therapies that make people with HIV recover completely.

Therefore, the answer to the HIV self-limiting question cannot be ascertained as researchers are still developing a cure.

Why is that?

HIV has the ability to "hide" in body cells that even drugs cannot reach, aka undetectable.

During the HIV life cycle, the virus incorporates itself into the DNA of its host cell. Antiretroviral therapy can indeed stop new viruses that may come from new cell infections. However, this method cannot remove viral DNA from the host cell completely.

Host cells may be killed by infection or die with age. However, there are still some cells that live for quite a long time in the body.

This results in the viral DNA reviving and the cells starting to produce new viruses. Therefore, HIV is unlikely to heal on its own.

Even people undergoing HIV treatment must obey the doctor's rules. This is because when a person stops treatment, even if only briefly, it can reactivate new HIV-infected cells.

Therefore, experts are trying various studies to find a drug so that the HIV virus can be completely eliminated from the body.

Until now they were trying to find a way to activate cells that made viral DNA undetectable. This method is expected to force cells "out into the open", so that the DNA can be the next target by antiretroviral drugs.

HIV can be cured in certain cases

Although there is no cure for HIV, there are certain cases that show that infected patients can recover.

However, of course the cases are not many and include a small number compared to the number of patients who are currently still suffering from HIV.

Reporting from Avert, a website about information and education about HIV and AIDS, there is some news about HIV-infected patients recovering from the virus.

Keep in mind that the HIV cases below do not heal by themselves but occur after undergoing treatment and are still in the reporting stage of recovery.

1. The London patient

One of the news that HIV-infected patients can recover and quite recently is a patient from London, England. In 2019 experts reported that a man was infected with HIV and received a stem cell transplant.

Now, he is in the stage of "remission" of HIV. This meant that the London man was no longer on antiretroviral treatment and doctors could not find HIV in his body.

This news is often referred to as a functional recovery. As previously explained, HIV cannot completely disappear from the body even though the viral DNA no longer duplicates and damages visible cells.

This man was declared cured after receiving a bone marrow transplant with chemotherapy to cure his blood cancer.

The cell donor has two copies of the CCR5 delta-32 gene, a rare genetic mutation that makes people immune to most strains of HIV. The CCR5 enzyme plays an important role in deactivating the "entrance" that HIV uses to make body cells infected.

2. The Berlin patient

Previously, good news came from Berlin in 2008 about HIV patients who recovered after receiving bone marrow transplants. The patient, Timothy Brown, has end-stage leukemia, but he underwent two transplants and total radiation therapy.

Unlike Brown, the London patient only needs to go through one transplant with light chemotherapy.

To date, Brown has not been on antiretroviral treatment for more than eight years. So that, the doctors can declare that he is cured of HIV.

However, the same team of doctors who treated the London patient stated that this method might have a different effect on other patients.

They still need to determine whether the bone marrow transplant can be used by most patients and what are the side effects.

3. Baby from Mississippi

Actually, at the CROI conference (Conference on Retroviruses and Opportunistic Infections) in 2013 it was announced that a baby could functionally recover from HIV.

The Mississippi native was given three strong doses of antiretroviral drugs shortly after birth.

However, this treatment was eventually forced to stop at 18 months of age when the mother was not receiving treatment. By the time they returned to treatment five months later, the DNA virus in the babies was no longer detected, aka gone.

After one year had passed, he was again examined and unfortunately found again the DNA of the HIV virus in the baby's body. From this the doctors argue that the word "recover" from HIV is very difficult to use because it can come back at any time.

However, the case of the Mississippi baby provides a lesson that early antiretroviral therapy (ARV) in infants can produce short-term remissions. At the very least, ARVs can control viral replication and limit the number of viral reservoirs.

While the patient's immune system may become infected, the small amount of the virus does not cause significant damage.

HIV cannot heal on its own and drugs to completely eliminate the virus are still being sought. However, undergoing treatment can keep patients healthy and protect their bodies from further damage.

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