HIV vaccine?

I've heard that about 10% of the caucasian population is resistant to HIV because their European ancestors fought bubonic plague. If this is true, then why don't we inject people with a vaccine to bubonic plague in order to make them resistant to HIV?

About 5% of the caucasian, sp ashkenazi population (although that's technically not caucasian, right?), have an alteration in the co-receptor for HIV that is in the cd4 cells ( a type of lymphocytes attacked by HIV). When this co receptor is half good and half mutant, people get a milder disease, and are called long-term non-progressors ( they can transmit it but will not get the disease). If these correceptors are totally mutant, they the person cannot get the HIV at all. Trying to mutate this receptors is not a good idea because we don't know if people are more susceptible to other diseases because of this mutation. There are reports of increased severity and death from West Nile virus in people who have this mutation, so it's probably not a great idea.
HIV vaccine trials are up and running and probably soon there will be a vaccine available.

There's no guarantee that would be effective, if there is a vaccine for bubonic plague. The two diseases are different.

What you have heard is a bit of truth mixed in with a bit of fiction.

There are a certain percentage of the human population (stronger in certain geographical/ethnic regions) that has a genetic mutation (from birth) that changes the outer layer of the CD4 cell (the immune cell that coordiantes the immune system and the cell that HIV loves to target, turn into an HIV factory, then kil).

This genetic mutation of the HIV receptors on the CD4 cell can help to prevent infection or can help to reduce the nature of the disease once infected. There is a lot of research going on in this area.

People living with HIV who have been doing so fopr years, they have never needed antiretroviral medication have been called Long Term Non-Progressors, or Elite controllers (name changes all the time) could very well have this genetic mutation or a combination of other factors we are not yet aware of.

The bubonic plague vaccination would have no effect on people's immunity to HIV.....I wish it were that simple!

Hope this helps.

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