INTERACTION OF MALARIA AD HIV INFECTION: MALARIOTHERAPY FOR AIDS

Chen XP ¹, Heimlich HJ ^2, Xiao BQ ¹, Liu SG ¹.
¹ The Municipal Health and Anti-Epidemic Station of Guangzhou, Guangzhou, China.
² The Heimlich Institute, Cincinnati, USA.

OBJECTIVES: To find out an effective treat Sent for HIV infection and AIDS patients.

METHODS: Basing on the epidemiology, immunology and clinics of malaria and HIV infection or AIDS, especially their coinfection, we have had an impression that malaria and HIV infection can inhibit with each other. In patients with HIV infection or AIDS, their CD4 Cell, interleukins, interferons and tumor necrosis factors decrease; but in patients with malaria these kinds of cell and cytokines increase. In one study, 71 patients with AIDS had a 35% mortality, during the same period, none of 41 patients with both AIDS and malaria died. In another study, HIV-like virus infection could decrease the mortality of experimental animals with malaria. Studies show malaria, unlike opportunistic diseases, does not adversely affect AIDS patients, nor does HIV interfere with the course and treatment of malaria. Combining with the history that malariotherapy was greatly successful in treating neurosyphilis, for which its discoverer, Dr. Wagner-Jauregg won the Nobel Prize of Medicine on 1927, we proposed malariotherapy for HIV infection and AIDS, and have done the clinic trial since 1993. Total 8 HIV patients were treated with malariotherapy (hematogenous Plasmodium vivax malaria, 10-20 fever paroxysms; the detail methods are shown in our another report).

RESULTS: A majority of the 8 HIV patients experienced a sustained increase in CD4 levels during our 1-2 years follow up without further treatment of any kind, and all remained clinically well.

CONCLUSIONS: Malariotherapy may be a promising treatment for HIV infection and AIDS, it should be further studied.