22 July, 2015 – The Children’s Hospital Bambin Gesù of Rome is once again at the forefront of the fight against of HIV in children. The biggest centers in the world dealing with the disease are: John Hopkins University, University College of London, Karolinska Institute, Stellenbosch University in Cape Town, the African center of KwaZulu in South Africa, and the Thai Red Cross AIDS Research Center, (just to name a few). These excellences have joined the international consortium “Epiical” to find a definitive and sustainable cure to AIDS. The consortium defined the next strategies in an article published by the prestigious scientific journal “Lancet Infectious Diseases”. It will start with the optimization of new technologies to study the virus in the body of infected children and the immune system’s response to the virus itself. It will therefore develop a predictive model using mathematical algorithms applied to the data of the largest international cohorts of children who received early treatment with antiretroviral therapy. Finally, it will identify the areas of intervention and the groups of children on which it will perform clinical trials with a pediatric therapeutic vaccine developed by researchers from the Bambin Gesù. “The goal is to make the norm those still exceptional cases, such as that of the Mississippi baby or the 18-year-old French girl who hasn’t needed therapy for 12 years” explained Professor Paolo Rossi, Epiical coordinator and director of the Department of the University Children’s Hospital Bambin Gesù. (Red)
