A team of Nigerian scientists have found what could be termed a novel treatment for Human Immune-deficiency Virus (HIV) infection that may reduce greatly the cost of treatment.
The team of scientists includes graduate students and researchers from the Michael Okpara University of Agriculture, Umudike, Abia state, University of Nigeria, Nsukka, and the Federal Medical Centre, Umuahia, Nigeria.
The group were able to show that synthetic Aluminum-magnesium silicate (AMS) has antiretroviral effects that could lay a perfect track for affordable and effective therapy for HIV.
Reports say:
Results of their work titled “Assessment
of Antiretroviral Effects of a Synthetic Aluminum-magnesium Silicate”
published in the British Journal of Medicine & Medical Research and
featured on SCIENCEDOMAIN international shows a significant reduction in
the titres of the virus when HIV positive plasma was incubated with
AMS.
Head, Department of Veterinary Medicine
at Michael Okpara University of Agriculture, and the lead scientist,
Professor Maduike Ezeibe, said the discovery could provide an ultimate
cure for the virus that has defiled so many scientific efforts to
curtail it in the past.
Ezeibe reacted aluminium silicate with
magnesium silicate to obtain the synthetic aluminum-magnesium silicate
devoid of impurities.
Giving further details Ezeibe noted:
“Molecules of aluminum-magnesium silicate have platelets that possess
both negative and positive electrical charges on their surfaces and
their edges. HIV on the other hand is negatively charged. So the simple
scientific understanding that opposite charges attracts ensures that the
HIV virus binds to the AMS and is discharged from the body alongside.”
“AMS is normally used as a stabilizing
medicine that does not really have toxic effect on the patient, so it
makes it a suitable agent for mopping up HIV virus from the body,” he
said.
The author noted also that “Adsorbing out
HIV means that millions of new virions usually released from each
infected cell would be inhibited from establishing new infections in
more cells,” adding, ”
Thus, HIV would be prevented from
overwhelming the body immune systems and the Acquired Immunodeficiency
Syndrome (AIDS) stage may be prevented, in which case cure could be
achieved, Ezeibe said.
