Kenya Insights

Tag: AIDS

  • A Kenyan Researcher In Team That Has Discovered A New Drug That Can Cure HIV

    A Kenyan Researcher In Team That Has Discovered A New Drug That Can Cure HIV

    Yes, HIV can be cured. A team of scientists have discovered a new drug can can cure the almost immortal virus.

    Big win for the country it has been revealed that a Kenyan scientist, Dr. Benson Edagwa, was amongst the team of researchers who have discovered the new HIV drug.

    The collaborative effort of the researchers has for the first time inched closer to finding a cure for HIV after successfully eliminating the virus in living mice.

    Dr Benson Edagwa, an assistant professor of pharmacology at the University of Nebraska Medical Centre (UNMC) and researchers at the Lewis Katz School of Medicine at Temple University, used a combination of a modified ARV treatment to keep the virus at low activity levels, along with a powerful gene-editing technique that snipped out HIV genes from infected cells.

    WHO estimated that 19.6 million people in East and Southern Africa are living with HIV.

    According to WHO, 2.5 million Kenyans are living with HIV with about 380,000 recorded deaths.

    If HIV is not treated, it can turn into Aids, a disease in which the virus badly damages the immune system.

    In a study involving 29 mice, in some of the animals the team used a combination of gene-editing technology (CRISPR) and a therapeutic treatment called LASER ART to erase HIV DNA from the genomes of animals in what they termed as unprecedented study.

    The team published their research yesterday, Tuesday, in the journal Nature Communications.

    The scientists found no trace of the virus in 30 per cent of the animals used in the tests.

    “This observation is the first step toward showing for the first time, to my knowledge, that HIV is a curable disease,” said Kamel Khalili,

    Kamel Khalili is the director of the Neurovirology and the Comprehensive NeuroAIDS Centre at Temple University’s Lewis Katz School of Medicine.

    LASER ART has been proven to be effective when released slowly over a long period of time.

    With Laser medication, traditional anti-HIV drugs are tweaked so they develop a crystal structure, and are then encased in fat-soluble particles.

    Laser art enables drugs to slip through the membranes of cells in places where HIV hides like the liver, lymph tissue, and spleen where the cells’ enzymes start to release the drug.

    This not only targets viral sanctuaries but also maintains HIV replication at low levels for extended periods of time, reducing the frequency of ART administration.

    The crystal structure releases the drugs more slowly, allowing them to continue killing dormant viruses as they start to emerge and replicate for months.

    According to Dr. Adagwa, Laser art medication works continuously rather than days or weeks like conventional forms of the medicines.

    It is half a century since the first known HIV-related death and two patients appear to have been cured of the virus.

    Even though ARV treatment can suppress HIV to the point that it has no impact on life expectancy, and even make it untransmittable, the “London patient”, announced earlier this year to have been cured of HIV offers a medical hope of freedom from a virus that over 37 million people worldwide are living with.

    Early last month, Kenya launched a clinical human trial of a vaccine that has the potential to stop HIV infecting cells.

    Scientists involved in the trial, Dr. Edagwa amongst them, said on Friday during final preparatory meetings that recruitment for the trial will begin in the next three weeks.

    The new vaccine being tested will apply a ‘block approach’ in stopping HIV from attaching itself onto cells.

    HIV is a virus that attacks CD4 cells. It is spread through certain body fluids.

    The clinical trial, code-named ‘IAVI W001 trial. 664gp140. W001’, will test the vaccine candidate dubbed BG505 SOSIP — a molecule cloned to look exactly as the HIV one — on Kenyan volunteers to check for safety.

    “We are going to the root cause. We are going after the virus that’s already integrated in the genome of the host cell,” said co-author of the report,Dr Howard Gendelman.

    Dr Howard Gendelman is the chairman of UNMC’s pharmacology and experimental neuroscience department and director of the Centre for Neurodegenerative Diseases.

    “We are at the cusp of a scientific revolution in human genomes that can change the course, quality and longevity of life,” reads part of Dr Howard conclusion.

  • Exposed: Nairobi Women Now Using ARVs To Add Weight And Mass

    Exposed: Nairobi Women Now Using ARVs To Add Weight And Mass

    While majority of women in Kenya’s urban areas are struggling with obesity and weight loss, a breed of women have emerged that are doing everything to gain weight.

    City women are now using antiretroviral (ARVs) to enhance their body mass and weight in well-organized groups of 10 from a popular social media app.

    These women are first brought together through posts who later form or added to Facebook groups. Majority are always resistant to enter into this perilous and prohibited act at first.

    Sources to the writer indicate that the Facebook groups are used to lure and convince the naive and unsuspecting souls who are desperate to gain weight.

    Many of these women are willing to do anything to get to their anticipated weights. Majority also don’t know where to get the ARVs.

    The source further says that the willing group members are later taken to a city pharmacist who sells them ARV drugs at Ksh 5,000. The now-unnamed Pharmacist is allegedly HIV positive. That’s how he’s able to access the drugs more often.

    The prescription runs in a year.  With some women saying that they would only stop taking drugs when they hit the weight of their choice.

    also related:Cocaine Laced Marijuana And Prostitution In TUK

    Dr Patrick Gichohi a HIV-AIDS specialists states that injection of ARVs in a healthy body changes the distribution body fats. Majority of Nairobi women confuse it with body and weight gains.

    “Various antiretroviral drugs, for instance Efavirenz may possibly cause psychiatric complications.  Whereas protease inhibitors, anti-HIV replicator drug, may well elevate levels of cholesterol,” Dr. Gichohi revealed.

    The HIV-AIDS specialist also said that ARV will have calamitous effects on their bodies sooner or later.

     

  • South Africa starts giving oral PrEP to HIV-negative sex workers – Its time Kenya did the same

    South Africa starts giving oral PrEP to HIV-negative sex workers – Its time Kenya did the same

    Early March 2016, South Africa announced leading-edge interventions to address the high HIV infection rates among sex workers. The planned actions included; the provision of immediate antiretroviral treatment to all sex workers with HIV, and also to offer daily oral pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) to HIV-negative sex workers so as to prevent them from acquiring the infection.

    While designing the plan, South Africans encompassed the multi-faceted lives of sex workers tackling not only their health needs but also psycho social support, alcohol and substance abuse treatment, reducing violence and economic empowerment.

    Kenya should be noting down the important lessons

    Although Kenya has been providing both emergency antiretrovirals and post-exposure prophylaxis (Pep) treatment, which suppress the HIV virus if taken within 72 hours of infection, sex workers are often left out this HIV response due to criminalisation, stigma, discrimination and Violence. But how can pre-exposure prophylaxis be offered to a group the is already existing in Kenya illegally? (Sex work is illegal in Kenya).

    1. Curbing stigma

    Implementing PrEP will mean that implementing groups such as Ministry of Health first take the service to the sex workers and afterwards encourage the sex workers to seek psycho-social support, alcohol and substance abuse treatment and economic empowerment services offered countrywide.

    The combination of HIV-related stigma and stigma associated with sex work prevents sex workers from seeking HIV testing, and sex workers are also less likely to receive treatment.

    2. Strategic de-criminalisation of Sex work.

    There is strong evidence that criminalisation of sex work (Sex work is illegal in Kenya) encourages behaviour associated with a high risk of HIV infections and other sexually transmitted infection. Additionally, where sex work is criminalised, violence against sex workers is often not reported or monitored, and legal protection is often not offered to victims of such violence. Additionally, health-service providers often neglect their duty to provide care when attending to sex workers.

    HIV in Kenya

    The first case of HIV in Kenya was detected in 1984 and by 2013, Kenya had the joint fourth-largest HIV epidemic in the world in terms of the number of people living with HIV. Roughly 58,000 people died from AIDS-related illnesses in the same year.

    Multi-level Interventions were launched including the declaration by the then President that HIV was a National Disaster. Remarkable achievements came through but the fact is that HIV remains a major threat to public health not only in Kenya but globally. The latest available data and evidence shows a general decrease in the HIV infections. Additionally, too many people are becoming infected with HIV, too many people do not know that they have HIV, and too many people are dying from AIDS-related causes.

    In a report by UNAIDS/Lancet, no African country reports a prevalence of HIV infection of less than 6% among sex workers. In comparison to the rest of the world, the median prevalence of HIV infection in sex workers in sub-Saharan Africa alone is 20·5% as compared with the global median of 3·9%.

    Kenya ought to and home from South Africans.

    If this is actually implemented fully, the sex workers an important but neglected population that has a very high risk of HIV will be reached. In the case of South Africa, a total of 70000 sex workers will be reached in a three year period.

    Who has already applauded South Africas plan

    The World Health Organization (WHO) has already welcomed South Africas plan.

    “We applaud the South African Government for this bold plan and for offering early testing and treatment and PrEP to sex workers,” said Dr Gottfried Hirnschall, Director of WHO’s HIV/AIDS Department.

    “This plan is an important step to scaling up treatment towards ‘treat all’ and to reducing HIV transmission effectively and rapidly.” added Dr Gottfried Hirnschall.

    South Africa has the highest number of HIV-positive people in the world, with an estimated 6.3 million people living with HIV. Sex work is estimated to account for as much as 20% of new HIV infections in the country. A recent Integrated Biological and Behavioural Surveillance Survey showed extremely high HIV prevalence among sex workers, with as many as 70% of sex workers in Johannesburg living with HIV.

    In September 2015, WHO recommended that PrEP be offered as an additional prevention choice for people at substantial risk of HIV. South Africa is recognized as the first country in Africa to translate this recommendation into national policy.