A solution to the HIV epidemic for the people hardest hit by it: sub-Saharan women. That is the goal of collaborating Dutch and African scientists. The Netherlands Organization for Scientific Research (NWO) and the AidsFonds together recently granted more than 6 million euros to finance their plans for the SPIRAL project.
Virtually all HIV research has been done on subtype B of the virus, the variant most commonly found in Europe, North America and Australia. Even though that part of the world is in many ways not the hardest hit by the HIV epidemic. The sub-Saharan African countries are, where people, mostly women, are infected with subtypes other than type B.
The SPIRAL project therefore focuses on a cure for everyone with HIV, including women and men with subtypes other than type B. The project is led by biomedical scientists Monique Nijhuis (UMC Utrecht) and Tokameh Mahmoudi (Erasmus MC), social scientist Sarah Stutterheim (Maastricht University) and internist-infectiologist Godelieve de Bree (Amsterdam UMC), in collaboration with fellow scientists in the Netherlands, Uganda, South Africa and Zambia. ‘In the past, African scientists were often only involved in research at a late stage. We work closely together at every level and from the beginning,’ said the research leader Monique Nijhuis.
An important step towards a cure is mapping the so-called HIV reservoir. These are immune cells in the body in which the virus remains present in a dormant state. Even with HIV inhibitors, this reservoir remains present, condemning people living with HIV to expensive, lifelong therapy and continuous monitoring. Curing HIV is only possible by removing the reservoir. But not much is yet known about reservoir size and activity of subtypes other than type B. Little is also known yet about reservoir differences between men and women. Therefore, gaining that knowledge is one of the main goals of the new research project.
In addition, the project focuses on social and economic challenges associated with the development and application of an HIV cure for all.
The project called SPIRAL runs for 6 years and is funded by the Knowledge and Information Covenant (KIC) program ‘HIV cure for all’, a partnership between Aidsfonds and NWO.
