Question
When will there be a cure for HIV?
18 September 2014. Related: All topics, Cure, Living with HIV long-term.
Hello,
Thanks for your answer to my previous question.
I have managed to convince my girlfriend who tested HIV positive not to commit suicide. I told her to take medications for the next few years.
I told her that i was convinced that there would be a cure in the next few years. Are my hopes justified?
In your opinion how long do you think it would take to find a cure if any?
What websites give such information?
Answer
Learning that you have HIV can be tough. But while coming to term with this it should help to know that current treatment means that most people can lead long, normal, lives.
We can do the same things we did in life before we had HIV. This includes sport, work, getting married and having children. Some people even say that finding out they were HIV positive meant that they valued life more than they did before.
Some people make changes in their lives for the better, in ways they might not have done otherwise. Life may be slightly more complicated with HIV, but access to good treatment allows all these things.
When someone is first diagnosed they may not have information, or they may not believe it. This is why access to accurate information is so important.
As for a cure, I’m sure it will come. In the last five years there has been a dramatic increase in this research. Scientists are making great progress in working on all the sections of this very complex problem.
Science has a way of solving most problems. If not now, then it will happen in the future. But putting a timeline on when is tough. Many of the leading scientists are cautious on this. Many suggest at least ten years is reasonable but an unexpected breakthough could change this.
One part of the challenge for HIV is that the virus becomes part of the genetic material (DNA) of immune cells. Some of these cells, once infected, rest or sleep for many years. Currently HIV drugs only work in cells that are active or awake, but research is looking at ways of targeting those sleeping cells.
This article describes new approaches to cure research:
https://i-base.info/guides/art-in-pictures/the-hiv-cure-puzzle
Even if a cure is a long way off it is not something that I worry about. It will come, and treatment will keep me healthy and alive until then. Following research is a good was to keep informed – both for newer treatments and for research into vaccines and ‘a cure’.
Most HIV organisations have newsletters that report on research from medical conferences. If you email me with which country you live in I can suggest something that may be useful.
Note: The answer was updated in September 2014 from a question asked in August 2007.
I
Hi
I am HIV positive. I have been suffering from progressive demyelination from last few months. Can it be cured with ART treatment
hi, where can i get support in singapore.?
i’m really scared..
Hi
As an Italian citizen (or any EU citizen) there should be no problem getting HIV treatment in the UK.
The Bristish Association for Sexual Health and HIV (BASHH) link to Genitary Urininary Medicine (GUM) clinics on the home page of their web site where you can also search by postcode. (http://www.bashh.org)
You can call NHS direct on 0845 4647 to find out details of local clinics, or the receptionist at your GP can tell you your local clinic without you having to give your name.
In London the two largest clinics are the Chelsea and Westminster Hospital (Kobler Centre) in SW10 and the Royal Free Hospital (Ian Charleson Day Centre) in NW3.
As long as you give then HIV clinic your postcode, then they cannot contact your GP without your permission. All your HIV records then will stay confidential to the HIV clinic and are not connected by name to any government records. A health advisor or nurse at the clinic can explain this confidentiality,
Other information about your rights as a patients are at this link (http://www.i-base.info/guides/starting/you.html) which is a section from the i-Base Introduction to Combination Therapy (http://www.i-base.info/guides/starting).
If you have only recently been diagnosed, it is important to register at a clinic so that routine blood tests (your CD4 count and viral load) can determine your current health.
You may not need HIV treatment for many years, but when you do, this should work well to give you a normal life, including having a family.
For now though, it will take a while for things to settle, and it will probably help to get some support.
If you would like to speak to another HIV-positive person, in confidence, about anything relating to HIV and treatment, please call the phoneline (0808 800 6013, Mon-Wed 12-4pm) or email back any questions.
Hi
I was just diagnosed. I am an Italian citizen and I would like to know if I tell the doctors or my GP that I have the virus will the government pick up this information?
It will ruin my life … I really need to know where to find access to those drugs here in London, where I can keep my data confidential?
I am single, no partners and I want to wait for a cure and to have a family in the future! Where can I find the treatment for this?
I think things are probably more complicated. Research into HIV and manufacturing HIV drugs is not now seen as either an easy or particularly lucrative area to work in. We have been lucky that pharma research focused on this area so intensively for the last 20 years and that we now have over 20 approved drugs, but I wouldn’t take this level of development for granted.
Safer sex and transmission of HIV is a human problem – globally HIV is a heterosexual disease. Reducing transmission is probably as closely related to stigma against testing and lack of access to treatment as it is to any narrowly defined sexual behaviour.
I do agree that healthcare as a global issue is not fairly distributed. The world is rich enough for all positive people to have access to treatment, but this needs political will, including for the wealthiest countries to fund treatment programmes like the Global Fund for HIV, TB and Malaria. This involves a wide range of issues too though. So although cost and distribution of medicines, including the structure for patents, is one problem, many others contribute. This includes the healthcare priorities of countries who can afford to treat their citizens, but who choose to prioritise, for example military and defense.
There will not be a cure as long as: pharmaceutical companies are making a tremendous amount of money from treatments of the symptoms; the wealthy world view discounts the value of human life for third world countries; the gay population continues to ignore the results of highly risky sexual behavior.
When will there be cure
Hi Sarfaraz
The short answer is that no one knows.
There is very little chance that HIV will be cured in the next 5 years, and not much chance in the next 10 years. It is possible, but very difficult.
Instead of worrying about a cure, you’d be better to focus on treatment which can keep you alive for many many years.
When it will HIV be cured?