By Benjamin Mwibo

-HIV cure researchers of Joint Clinical Research Center ( JCRC) and Makerere walter reed project are hopeful and have given an update on how far they have made developments regarding HIV cure after conducting several studies and possibilities on how the virus can be suppressed, made dormant or otherwise extracted from the body cells.

In similar efforts to find the cure, journalists, through their network of the Health Journalists Network Uganda (HEJNU) during a media cafe on Tuesday, have been also tasked to keep on informing the public through different platforms about the relevant information and new developments regarding the HIV cure, calling upon the public to as well participate in research towards developing the HIV cure to help consider them first once the cure is found.

Dr. Betty Mwesigwa , a researcher and the Deputy Executive Director of Makerere University Walter Reed project , a bio medical research organization that has been running HIV research and clinical trials testing HIV vaccines for the last 22 years, said that most of the work they have so far done over years is early phase work of researching about the product mainly for the vaccines.

“As part of the global world aiming at HIV cure, we have engaged today because of the HIV cure research work that we participate, as it is known widely that HIV has got neither a vaccine nor cure, the drugs being used are good and give a good quality of life , however the medicines are not a cure and not a preventive measure, therefore because of those limitations of the drugs, the scientific world has not stopped it’s persue in finding the cure and vaccine for the past 20 years.”

Dr. Mwesigwa mentioned that the virus has the capability of entering a body and hides in certain parts of the body that doctors know like the brain cells, liver, blood cells and others , and this has made the virus unable to be eradicated from the body. The cure research agenda is however aiming to reach to the hiding virus and find ways of eradicating it from the body because as long as it is there, it has the ability to remobilize and strike a person’s immune system the moment he or she stops taking the ARV drugs.

There are basically two aspects to think about while finding the cure, one is cure by remission, meaning to make it sleep and none effective and second is to eradicate or remove it completely. The ministry of health for the United States, The National Institute of Health (NIH) is funding a lot of groups globally in finding HIV cure, under their umbrella of HIV Obstruction by Program Epigenetics (HOPE) collaboration that focuses on specific categories of people, she noted.

The HOPE, suggests to block the sleeping virus and lock it from wherever it is and find ways of cutting it out of the body using the new technology of Gene therapy. Many things have been looked at and this is the fourth year of the HOPE collaboratory still in the laboratory processes, but it is crucial that Ugandans participate in developing the HIV cure research so that by the time the cure comes out they are also considered first for treatment, Dr. Mwesigwa added.

Doctors know what they do but do not know how to pass on the message to the public, therefore journalists can help bridge the communication gap and make it more understandable to people out there who seek knowledge about HIV treatment, vaccine and cure developments, Dr. Henry Mugerwa, head of Research at JCRC said.

The HIV virus integrates into someone’s DNA and makes itself part of it, something that makes it difficult to fight it. “We learn from how the virus behaves to find a way of fighting it because it keeps on changing the ways it affects the body,” he said.

Mugerwa, included that they are also working on another project where they can get people vaccinated against HIV virus, just like any other diseases such as measles, people can as well be vaccinated against the HIV and be able not to register anymore HIV infections. There has however been another development of the injectable drugs from the injection of two months to that of six months that soon shall be initiated.