The team of scientists, including graduate students and researchers from the Michael Okpara University of Agriculture, Umudike, Abia state, University of Nigeria, Nsukka, and the Federal Medical Centre, Umuahia, Nigeria have been able to show that synthetic Aluminum-magnesium silicate (AMS) has antiretroviral effects that could lay a perfect track for affordable and effective therapy for HIV.
Head, Department of Veterinary Medicine at Michael Okpara University of Agriculture, and the lead scientist, Professor Maduike Ezeibe, said the discovery could provide an ultimate cure for the virus that has defiled so many scientific efforts to curtail it in the past.
Ezeibe reacted aluminium silicate with magnesium silicate to obtain the synthetic aluminum-magnesium silicate devoid of impurities.
Giving further details Ezeibe noted:
“AMS is normally used as a stabilizing medicine that does not really have toxic effect on the patient, so it makes it a suitable agent for mopping up HIV virus from the body,” he said. The author noted also that “Adsorbing out HIV means that millions of new virions usually released from each infected cell would be inhibited from establishing new infections in more cells,” adding,
"Thus, HIV would be prevented from overwhelming the body immune systems and the Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome (AIDS) stage may be prevented, in which case cure could be achieved," Ezeibe said.