News Health & Medicine

‘Dormant’ HIV has ongoing skirmishes with the body’s immune system

In people on HIV drugs, the virus may still exhaust T cells, making it hard to fight back

An image of HIV particles seen in yellow replicating from an infected T cell seen in pink.

In this image, HIV particles (yellow) replicate from an infected T cell (pink). In people taking antiretroviral medications, infected cells still shed bits of virus that immune system can detect. The discovery overturns a decades-old idea that the viral reservoir was largely quiescent, not affecting the immune system.

NIAID

By John Carey

- More than 2 years ago

For two decades, the dominant idea in HIV research has been that antiretroviral therapy effectively wipes out active viruses that cause devastating infections but leaves behind a reservoir of infected cells seemingly invisible to the immune system — until treatment is stopped.