HIV: Current Research
Open Access

Research on an HIV vaccine: The Difficulties and the Possibilities

Govind Gunakamadeva^{* *}Correspondence: Govind Gunakamadeva, Department of Drug Utilization and Evaluation, Kathmandu University, Dhulikhel 45200, Nepal, Email:

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Description

HIV infection, which was once terminally ill, is now a chronic disease with a longer lifespan thanks to ongoing diagnostic and treatment advancements. Initially, these advantages were only available to patients in Resource-Rich Countries (RRCs), there has been a global movement to give millions of HIV-infected people in Resource-Limited Countries (RLCs) access to antiretrovirals. Most committed individuals receiving the most recent Combination Antiretroviral Therapy (cART) achieve viral suppression. While assays that look for latent tissue reservoirs with integrated viral DNA have revealed new information about treatment objectives, the cause of viral rebound when treatment is administered, and continued low-level viremia in patients who appear to be "suppressed," viral load tests with greater sensitivity have improved our understanding of these two factors [1].

New mechanistic insights into the impact of chronic ART on end organs have been provided by a persistent chronic inflammatory state assumed to result in part from the translocation of gut microbial products, even during suppressive cART. In order to diminish end-organ illness, including cardiovascular, neurologic, renal, and bone diseases, new research is being conducted to supplement suppression with pharmaceutical techniques to purge the latent viral reservoirs and limit translocation of intestinal microbial products. Additional diagnostic and therapeutic problems are brought on by the presence of opportunistic infections such as HIV, coinfections [2,3].

Researchers in clinical and translational pharmacology have significantly advanced our knowledge of the intricate interactions between pharmacogenomics, pharmacokinetics, and pharmacodynamics of anti-retrovirals. Pharmacologic problems, such as maintaining medication adherence, preventing and managing drug-drug interactions, determining the best doses for malnourished patients, monitoring drug toxicity, and pharmacogenomics testing, make it more difficult to employ cART regimens in patients with comorbidities. The objective of increasing ART exposure while reducing risk factors that result in problems from chronic cART and concurrent pharmaceutical use is served by each of these categories [4,5].

After the RV144 experiment, the scientific community came to the conclusion that a successful HIV vaccine would be possible if we could draw lessons from the past, identify the major obstacle in our way, and consider cutting-edge vaccine approaches. However, research on an HIV-1 vaccine is still in its early stages, and there are still numerous issues that need to be resolved. First off, the biggest obstacle developing a comprehensive HIV vaccine may be the wide range of viral subtype and sequence variation. Due to the "error-prone" nature of the HIV reverse transcriptase enzyme, infected people could produce extremely diverse and dynamic virus populations. The amino acid sequences can vary by up to 20% even amongst subtypes of a single kind, and by up to 35% between subtypes overall [6].

Conclusion

This strategy is probably going to hasten the adoption of new drugs in the nations where HIV and other infectious diseases affect people the most. Global health researchers are being trained by the Fogarty International Center at the National Institutes of Health in the United States as well as other foreign research donors like Meeting the need for clinical pharmacology research around the world still presents a problem in terms of how to construct new research facilities with cutting-edge equipment. An annual workshop at the International AIDS Conference has served as a forum for debate, needs assessment, and strategic planning with the goal of developing a plan to address these requirements.

References

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