February / March 1995
A Model of HIV Replication
Working Overtime
At the 34th Interscience Conference on Antimicrobial Agents and Chemotherapy Dr. David Ho of the Aaron Diamond AIDS Research Center presented a model he had developed to describe the dynamics of HIV replication. GMHC's Treatment Issues reports that in his model Ho suggested that nearly half the viral population in the plasma is renewed every day and that approximately 22 million CD4 cells are destroyed each day in the blood--with 50 times more destroyed in the lymphoid tissue. Ho recommended that antiretroviral therapy be undertaken as soon as possible after HIV infection because he believes HIV production in the first two to four weeks after infection equals the amount of the virus produced over the next four to five years.
