Researchers disprove long-standing belief about HIV treatment

WINSTON-SALEM, N.C. - Researchers at Wake Forest University Baptist Medical Center have disproved a long-standing clinical belief that the hepatitis C virus slows or stunts the immune system's ability to restore itself after HIV patients are treated with a combination of drugs known as the "cocktail." Hepatitis C (HCV) infection is more serious in HIV-infected people, leading to rapid liver damage, according to the Centers for Disease Control. Intravenous drug use is a main method of contraction for both HIV and HCV and 50 to 90 percent of HIV-infected drug users are also infected with HCV. The Wake Forest Baptist study looked at whether having HCV co-infection impairs immune restoration in patients receiving highly active anti-retroviral therapy (HAART) to suppress their HIV infection. The results appear in the July issue of... [read full story]