Medical device, diagnostics and generic drug manufacturer Abbott ABT,
said Tuesday that a team of scientists found an unusually high number of people in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) with controlled HIV and said they could be a key to advancing therapies or even developing a vaccine. The people in question test positive for HIV antibodies, but have a low to undetectable viral load, without using antiretroviral treatment, Abbott said in a statement. The findings are published in EbioMedicine, part of the prestigious medical journal The Lancet. They “could help researchers uncover biological trends within this population that could lead to advances in HIV treatments – and possibly vaccines,” the statement said. Abbott researchers, who work with Johns Hopkins University, the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, the University of Missouri-Kansas City and the Université Protestante au Congo, found that the prevalence of HIV elite controllers in the DRC was 2.7 % to 4.3%, compared to 0.1% to 2.0% worldwide. “The discovery of a large group of HIV elite controllers in the DRC is significant given that HIV is a lifelong, chronic condition that typically progresses over time,” said Tom Quinn, MD, director of the Johns Hopkins Center for Global Health, and Head of the NIAID’s International HIV / AIDS Research Section. “There have been rare cases where infection has not progressed in individuals prior to this study, but this high frequency is uncommon and suggests that something interesting is happening in the DRC at a physiological level that is not random.” Abbott shares were slightly higher for the market, but are up 50% in the last 12 months, while the S&P 500 SPX,
has won 26%.