HIV vaccine?!
Question:
HIV vaccine?
I've heard that about 10% of the caucasian population is resistant to HIV because their European ancestors fought bubonic plague. If this is true, then why don't we inject people with a vaccine to bubonic plague in order to make them resistant to HIV?
Answers:
About 5% of the caucasian, sp ashkenazi population (although that's technically not caucasian, right?), have an alteration in the co-receptor for HIV that is in the cd4 cells ( a type of lymphocytes attacked by HIV). When this co receptor is half good and half mutant, people get a milder disease, and are called long-term non-progressors ( they can transmit it but will not get the disease). If these correceptors are totally mutant, they the person cannot get the HIV at all. Trying to mutate this receptors is not a good idea because we don't know if people are more susceptible to other diseases because of this mutation. There are reports of increased severity and death from West Nile virus in people who have this mutation, so it's probably not a great idea.
HIV vaccine trials are up and running and probably soon there will be a vaccine available.