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Royboy, as I understand it, HIV uses your CD-4 cells (T-cells, or a form of white blood cells) to replicate and survive. The reservoir is basically an infected T-cell that has the virus in it, but is laying dormant because of the ART medication. If you stop taking the medication, the HIV would wake back up, and then be able to infect more of your white blood cells. Let me know if that helped you understand
Royboy, First off, like you I'm NOT a medical doctor, PhD, healthcare professional, or scientist of any kind. As I understand it, when the term reservoir is used as it relates to HIV, it's essentially referencing a collected amount of HIV cells that are hidden, most often, within a deep tissue area of the body. For example, the brain, or perhaps deep within a major organ. And unfortunately, it's tough for anti-retrovirals to reach those cells. Someone smarter than me, may want to clarify.
This test group is rather small, also what strain of the virus did the participants have? To generalize all varieties of the virus makes the entire study invalid.
Please re-phrase this article without using scientific terms I am not familiar with. Reservoir? What's that? I apologize for not being a PHd in infectious diseases or not holding a job in the field. Laymens terms please. Your explanation is in the clouds and I can't see see the trees for the forest.
Bartski
Knowledge of the immune system is advancing tremendously , compared to the errors at the start of the epidemic. An example : CD4 cells were thought to be 'junk cells' in adults, so fluctuations in counts were unimportant. WRONG ! HIV research has opened doors to science & medicine that we never knew existed , especially for immunology & virology. Happy New Year to All !
January 1, 2017 • Vancouver