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Article Excerpt
The following report outlines some of the highlights from the recent IAS (International AIDS Society) Conference on HIV Pathogenesis and Treatment, which was held July 24-27, 2005 in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.

The IAS conference focused on several critical areas which included: Basic Science, Treatment (including clinical data about approved medications, as well as laboratory data on pipeline drugs), and Prevention. In this article, I will highlight the developments from the conference, in particular some very exciting information about a new class of entry inhibitors coming down the pike called CCR5 antagonists, and a few intriguing studies in other areas.

Viral Diversity

Dr. Francine McCutchan, head of the Global Molecular Epidemiology Program for the U.S. Military HIV Research Program, presented data regarding the diversity of different strains of HIV around the globe, and how they have mixed to create additional strains not previously recognized. Dr. McCutchan showed how this viral diversity can hinder our ability to develop a protective vaccine against HIV, because the virus itself is always changing. However, new tests in development can detect whether or not an individual is infected by more than one strain of HIV, called HIV co-infection. Sometimes this results when an infected person gets reinfected by another partner (also called superinfection), or when an uninfected person is infected by two separate partners around the same time frame. Superinfection may occur in as many as 40% of people (particularly those who have multiple partners), and could result in faster progression of the disease since the newly acquired virus may be more dangerous. This data supports the current recommendations that HIV-infected people do everything possible to prevent themselves...

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