South Africa’s HIV Research Is “Galvanising” To Tackle Coronavirus

South Africa’s HIV researches are “galvanising” to tackle the COVID-19 pandemic. South Africa has one of the most prolific HIV research bases in the world and the similarities with COVID-19 are making them confident that they can understand and ultimately tackle the pandemic. 

“There are a lot of similarities [between the two viruses] that mean that a lot of the folks who’ve been working on HIV for the last 15 years are able to step in and study SARS-CoV-2,” says Penny Moore, a research chair in virus-host dynamics at the University of the Witwatersrand in Johannesburg. “Understanding the virus and sequencing local strains is something we’ve done for years for HIV.”

However, because there is reason to suggest that the virus mutates in the local population, tests will have to be for specific strains. 

“Tests and assays have to be for the South African [version of the] virus, so we need to know where and how it is different to the European one,” Moore says.

As ‘Quartz Africa’ reports, Moore’s laboratory specialises in people’s immune response to HIV. “Using the same technologies, [we can see] what happens in SARS-CoV-2 and what is considered a good immune response within people [whose immune systems] are clearing the virus,” she says. “We’re repurposing things that have been up and running for 15 years.”

Although Moore doesn’t expect the immune response between a South African and an Italian, for example, to be different, “from a clinical point of view, it’s likely to be different [because our population has] a lot of HIV and tuberculosis”. 

South Africa has tested more than 44,000 people for the virus.

Glenda Gray, head of South Africa’s Medical Research Council and a HIV expert who is a principal investigator on the international HIV Vaccine Trials Network said the “South Africa is well geared up to run vaccine trials. We have the capacity, 34 sites that have done HIV vaccine trials from phase one to three. These sites are staffed, have pharmacies, and have infrastructure that could really respond to evaluating vaccines.”

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