Grant: Operating Grant - PA: HIV/AIDS Research Initiative - Biomedical/Clinical Stream

Although the current standard of therapy for Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV) infection is able to control the progression of the disease and prevent AIDS in most persons, these persons must take the drugs for life. Thus, there is no cure for AIDS because the current standard therapies can not get rid of the virus completely in infected persons. One reason for this, is that the virus can hide in places called reservoirs. HIV establishes residence in these reservoirs very early in infection. It is currently unclear whether treatment of infected persons very early in the infection is beneficial. The proposed study is a pilot, randomized controlled clinical trial comparing a standard therapy regimen to a more intensified therapy regimen that uses new anti-viral agents named Raltegravir and Maraviroc, in acute/early HIV infection to see whether the more intense regimen is able to reduce or even get rid of virus reservoirs. The results of this study, if favourable, will inform on developing larger trials for the treatment of very early HIV infection.