Aids virus link offers hope to MS patients

SCIENTISTS said they had statistical evidence to back a novel theory that infection by the Aids virus may reduce the risk of multiple sclerosis (MS).

Patients in England who were infected with the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) were mathematically far less likely to develop MS than the general population, they found.

If further work confirmed the link, there could be a major advance in the fight against MS, the scientists wrote in the Journal of Neurology, Neurosurgery and Psychiatry.

MS is a progressive disease of the brain and central nervous system in which the immune system goes haywire, attacking a fatty insulative sheath around nerve fibres.

In 2011, doctors reported on the case of a 26-year-old Australian man who was diagnosed with MS several months after being confirmed as having HIV.

The sclerosis symptoms disappeared completely after the patient started taking anti-HIV drugs and remained that way throughout the following 12 years in which his health was monitored.

This was followed by a Danish study which tried to see whether antiretroviral drugs may treat or slow progression of MS, but its sample size was too small to throw up a solid conclusion.

The latest study in Australia looked at a British databank describing details of hospital treatment in England between 1999 and 2011.

During this time, more than 21 000 people who were treated in hospital had HIV.

These were compared against a group of almost 5.3 million people who did not have HIV and who were treated for minor conditions and injuries.

In the HIV group, only seven people developed MS over the ensuing years, far fewer than the 18 that would have otherwise been expected -- a risk reduction of nearly two-thirds.