Kenya: Top scientist trains sights on getting HIV vaccine, cure

One Kenyan may soon place the country as the first nation whose citizen found a vaccine and a cure for HIV. Prof Thumbi Ndung’u – head of Kwazulu Natal Research Institute for Tuberculosis and HIV pathogenesis — has been studying the virus for 27 years, as well as tracking the scientific developments aimed at finding a cure and vaccine for Aids. He noted that in 2013, at one of the world’s greatest scientists’ gathering called Conference on Retroviruses and Opportunistic Infections, a “Mississippi baby” was announced to have been cured of HIV. The baby was born to a positive mother who had not received any treatment during pregnancy. Thirty hours after birth, doctors at University of Mississippi Medical Centre in USA began treating the infant. Even after the baby was taken off antiretroviral therapy after 18 months, the virus was invisible in her blood. Then there was Visconti study in France, where scientists reported...