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.
Well, atypical antibodies mean that they cannot tell for sure what those antibodies are against. It usually takes some time to find out. Antibodies to HIV are fairly easy to detect, so I do not expect it to be HIV. Whatever it turns out to be, your hospital is obliged to let you know, as long as you agree to that.
Hi everyone,
This is really a scary topic.
I
The short answer is nobody knows. Let us hope that it will be soon.
When will be
I was diagnosed positive two weeks ago. These have been the worse weeks of my life. I keep hearing from the doctor and support, and also reading that I am lucky I got diagnosed in 2008, when there are lots of treatments to control it.
No matter how much I read, I still feel quiet sad and anxious knowing there is no cure, no way back (only sort of control, but it keeps killing people).
I also keep reading that I won’t need treatment for many years, but at the end of the day, it is like being told you will be killed in a car accident eventualy. You just don’t know when, but you know for sure a car will hit you.
I am doing my best to keep myself with positive thoughs and trying to keep my life as it was before. I just can’t, and I am sure a lot of people out there have to agree that once you got diagnosed you will never be the same.
I hope one day soon I can be happy and worry about the silly stuff I used to worry about. I am not sure how longer I could keep crying and feeling sorry for myself… hopefully not long enough cause I am sick of myself already and had cried too many tears.
I haven’t thought of committing suicide, cause I really want to live my life, enjoy things as
I, personally, have not seen any study results on the possible effects of ARVs. Your condition is quite rare for the general population of HIV-positive people and perhaps hence the lack of much info. Give me some more details about your treatment history, etc. so that I can take it from there.
This is definitely not something that we have published on our site. We take the HIV/AIDS information particularly seriously and so far cannot get involved in scientifically based predictions of when/whether/by whom a cur will be invented.
I am afraid this site is in Portuguese and I cannot understand what they are saying. Whatever it is though, I can reassure you that there are many people who are awaiting a cure impatiently. A cure will be a major news and it will not pass unnoticed. Hopefully that news will come soon.
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