Israeli scientists have discovered a breakthrough drug to cure AIDS.
HIV is treated with a cocktail of drugs that slow the progression of the disease but not cure the body. These drugs have treated AIDS as a chronic illness, not as a fatal one.
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Newly developed by Professors Abraham Loyter and Assaf Friedler of Hebrew University, a drug called Gammora is destroying cells infected with HIV virus without harming the rest of the body’s healthy cells. The Times of Israel reported Tuesday, citing channel 2.
Gammora is currently being tested at the Kaplan Medical Center in Rehovot Israel.
test tubes containing the blood of ten AIDS patients currently being treated at the hospital, and was found to reduce the virus count in the blood samples by as much as 97 percent in eight days, it was reported Monday.
The developed active ingredient in the drug is a peptide, or smaller version of a protein, which creats many copies of the virus’ DNA to enter the infected cell – instead of one copy only – causing the cell to destroy itself.
“We are destroying the cells, so there is no chance that the virus will awaken one day, because there are no cells, there will be no cells that contain the virus, ” Prof. Loyter explained. “The drug enhances certain processes in the body during the spreading of the virus and that enhancement kills certain cells.”
Last week the Israeli Health Ministry announced that it will begin a pilot program next month that will provide free HIV-prevention drug to at-risk population groups.
The durg, Truvada, approved by the Health Ministry in February, reduces the chance of HIV infection. When taken regularly, the drugs have been shown to significantly lower the risk of contracting the disease.
