Conditions: Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome Virus
Keywords: immune activation antiretroviral therapy atorvastatin immune exhaustion adults Africa
Allocation: RANDOMIZED | Intervention model: CROSSOVER
Enrollment: 30
Healthy volunteers: no

Brief summary:
We hypothesise that atorvastatin changes immune activation among HAART-treated adults with suboptimal cluster cell differentiation 4 (CD4) recovery by 25%

Detailed description:
The investigators have previously shown that up to 40% of HAART-treated adults have suboptimal CD4 recovery despite viral suppression. The investigators have also shown that immune activation and exhaustion are significantly higher among patients that do not exhibit satisfactory rise in CD4 counts despite viral suppression (suboptimal responders); when compared with their counterparts with viral suppression and satifactory CD4 count recovery (optimal responders). Given that atorvastatin changes immune activation in this pilot study, then larger studies can be done to understand its effect on CD4 count increase among suboptimal responders.

Arms:
arm 1: Intervention is be atorvastatin, Lipitor® (40mg) 2 tablets daily (as adjuvant to HAART) for 12 weeks.

Peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMC) will be collected for immune activation assays using flowcytometry arm 2: Intervention for the placebo comparator arm is Placebo 2 tablets daily for 12 weeks PBMC will be collected for immune activation assays using flowcytometry

Interventions: intervention 1: atorvastatin, Lipitor® intervention 2: Placebo
Intervention descriptions: intervention 1: PBMC collected for immune activation assays using flowcytometry intervention 2: PBMC collected for immune activation assays using flowcytometry

Protocol document: