Networking a Cure for HIV

    

Fig.1. HIV illustration (left, credit: ©iStock.com/Rost-9D) and receiving treatment (right, credit: WHO).

Editor’s Note: SciColl held our first community workshop on Emerging Infectious Diseases in October 2014. This October, we're posting several pieces that highlight the important work where collections continue to play an integral role.

Editor’s Note: SciColl intern, Eden Absar from the University of Houston, contributed this article as part of her time in the SciColl office during Summer 2017. 

The human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) is an enigma of an infection that has puzzled scientists, doctors, and researchers since the first presented case in the 1980s. Although the modern medical community continues to study it and gather information, a cure for the disease remains elusive. According to the Elizabeth Glaser Pediatric AIDS Foundation, as of 2015, there are nearly 37 million people worldwide who have been infected by HIV. Of that number, 1.8 million are children under the age of 15. In 2015, approximately 150,000 children were newly infected with HIV - a rate of nearly 400 new pediatric HIV patients every day. These numbers present a huge problem that appears to grow threateningly larger in the face of the lack of a cure for the disease.

Birthplace of the HIV-1 pandemic

Fig.1. HIV-1 under electron microscope.

Like all gripping stories, the origin of HIV/AIDS is steeped in sex, a population boom, and a rapidly changing culture. A recent study in Science traced the source of the pandemic HIV-1 group M to Kinshasa, in what is now the Democratic Republic of Congo. The international team of researchers, led by Oxford University and University of Leuven, used archival HIV-1 strains and demographic data dating to the early 20th century. Researchers concluded that the “perfect storm” of factors -- including sharp urban growth, increased transportation, and changes to sex trade -- led to the global pandemic that has infected more than 75 million people.