Price for HIV invisibility

HIV is able to hide from the immune system due to mutations – but the virus pays a price for this invisibility, a new study has found.

Due to this ability, HIV is less competent at mutating, according to research from an international team of experts in the Journal of Experimental Medicine.

The team, led by Hayley Crawford at the University of Oxford, found that the virus replicates 20 times slower than normal in cell culture if it has mutated three times.

This study was carried out on couples in Zambia, one of which has the triple-mutant virus and has passed the infection to a partner.

From the findings of the research, it has been suggested that new vaccines need to be designed that have the capabilities of producing a "T cell response against a number of different viral peptides".

The T cells have the ability to recognise fragments of HIV and form an attack on them.

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