The following is a transcript of the conversation between Karl Schmid and our favorite Dr., Anu Seshadri about an HIV vaccine.

KARL
An HIV vaccine, next.

Hello there. Welcome to +Talk on +Life where we’re all about turning positive into a plus. And we’ve got some really hopefully positive news. There are news reports have been coming out about a new HIV vaccine trial. Here to break it down and tell us all about it, our Chief Medical Advisor, Dr. Anu Seshadri. Good to see you, doc.

ANU
It’s great to see you.

KARL
So is this exciting news?

ANU
I think it’s very exciting. Here we have have new technology that’s been implemented with the COVID vaccine, and we are seeing it being trialed and tested on HIV.

KARL
Break it down in the most simplest form. What does this mean?

ANU
Hope, I would say, ’cause it’s just the phase one trial. It’s an MRNA vaccine similar to the shots that we’ve already taken for COVID, and I’m hoping that it’ll show some positive results. Obviously there’s about 50 participants that’s participated in this trial. So, we’ll see where it goes, because previous vaccination trials that have been done on HIV, unfortunately, they’ve gone through the phases and then-

KARL
To phase three.

ANU
Phase three, and then that’s where it stops. Yeah. So.

KARL
And is that because HIV, the infection, is just so advanced and clever at sort of lynching onto the cells and quickly replicating?

ANU
Yeah. But it’s also the process in which it replicates, it creates variants, right? And that’s the part that’s hard to target is creating a vaccine that can neutralize all the different variants, or get to the vaccine, the virus ahead of time, get to the virus ahead of time before it starts to replicate and create those variants. Do you mean the vaccine unsuccessful or unreliable, right?

KARL
So, when you have a vaccine trial like this, we’re hoping that it’s a positive result to stop HIV. Does that mean that the people who are part of the trial are gonna be exposed to HIV potentially?

ANU
Hopefully not, unless they’re exposed due to their lifestyle.

KARL
Right.

ANU
So what they hope to do is give a tiny, tiny bit of the virus, or something that’s a particle that stimulates the immune system, it’s called an ImmunoGen, and they will inject that into these participants to see if the immune system is-

KARL
Fires up and fights it.

ANU
Fires up and then fights it, or neutralizes that ImmunoGen.

KARL
Right. So they’re not gonna inject people or give people HIV.

ANU
No. Absolutely not, ’cause that’s immoral.

KARL
Well, it is immoral but you kind of go, how do you do a vaccine for something, and then test it and know that it’s gonna work?

ANU
And this MRNA technology is so advanced, it’s being implemented, which is different from what we had before, because this is computer based. And so you can actually implement change, make modifications, make your boosters, anything that you need a lot quicker than what we had before, and it’s messenger RNA. You’re sending a message into the body to instruct the body’s immune system to rev up and create the antibodies that it needs to fight that particular virus.

KARL
It’s the messenger.

ANU
Yes

KARL
It’s like, here’s your alert. Get to it.

ANU
Yes.

KARL
That’s really interesting. And thank you, a really simple way to put it. It’s been 40 years. 40 years people have been trying, how much, I know MRNA is this sort of term we hear a lot now, ’cause you said because of COVID, but this was sort of in the pipeline Pre-COVID, and it’s sort of, COVID has borrowed from this. This is where HIV has actually helped with our current situation, right?

ANU
Absolutely, I would think so. And it’s unfortunate that we couldn’t implement it before because pandemic kind of took precedence at this point, but at least, cross our fingers, it would help.

KARL
Look, who would’ve thought silver lining out of something as horrible as the pandemic? What about, what is, if this is successful does that then open the door for a cure? Do you think?

ANU
A cure is gonna be a little bit more… I would say it’s gonna be a little bit more tedious or painstaking because of the fact that of all those variants that we spoke about, how do you actually stop the virus, and then kill the virus in itself? As of right now, if you think about it, we don’t have a cure for COVID. We don’t have a cure for flu. We don’t have a cure for herpes. We don’t have a cure for viruses in general. We have medications that can slow down the viruses, stop the viruses from replicating, but unfortunately our body is the only thing and has the information to kill viruses, or some of the viruses, like we talked about before, herpes, does not have a cure at this moment, right?

KARL
Right.

ANU
So ,I’m not sure. I think that that’s gonna be a long time coming, but hopefully with new improvements in technology and science, I wouldn’t put it past us to find a cure.

KARL
It’s definitely good news-

ANU
Yes.

KARL
This vaccine. It’s definitely a positive. So, something we can have hope for. Maybe not get excited about, but have hope for. I think that’s a really clear, important message. I just wanna ask one last question before we wrap things up. We’ve now all gotten used to hearing about different strains. We know different strains of COVID. I saw a headline last week that said there is a new strain of HIV out that it’s kind of a super strain. Should we be worried? I think I read it was sort of in Amsterdam, Holland, was where it was localized. What do you know about that? Is that something that comes to America? Do I have to be worried as an HIV positive person that I could sort of reinfect myself and it could play chaos?

ANU
Yeah, just like the Alpha, Delta, Omicron strains, this particular strain is named the VB variant or the VB strain from the Netherlands. Yes, it is more infective. Yes, the viral load, unfortunately that we’re seeing is as soon as a person gets infected, spikes up by three and a half to almost five and a half times what other variants have been seeing, the CD4 count plummets making people that are infected with the strain more susceptible to converting to AIDS.

KARL
Right.

ANU
Or being-

KARL
Getting sick with something else.

ANU
Yeah, getting sick with something else.

But, I have to say this is the big but, is all the medications that are out there have been proven to be effective against this strain, but it also just highlights just with everything else the importance of continuing to get tested, taking the preventative measures that we have, such as PrEP, going to your doctor, depending on your lifestyle, really, really getting tested on a regular basis, and just keeping up with your general health.

KARL
Yeah. Taking good care of yourself. Dr. Anu Seshadri, I always love it when you come in. It’s so good to see you. That is gonna do it for this episode of +Talk. Exciting hopeful news in our future, and certainly in the way of possible vaccine for HIV, That is all the time we’ve got. Remember you can check us out on the website, pluslifemedia.com, and be sure to follow us on social media. We are @pluslifemedia. Until next time, it’s bye bye from the doctor and I.

ANU
Spread the love. Happy Valentine’s day.