Question
What is the outlook for a cure?
24 February 2012. Related: All topics.
I have been keeping up with the recent research updates for the cure for HIV. How promising do you believe this research to be? Can we look forward to a cure to help the people who are infected with this virus?
Thank you.
Answer
It is true that there is currently a lot of exciting research being conducted into the possibility of a cure for HIV. This is a complicated area of research and these are still early days. Most of these researchers think that even if a cure is possible, it is unlikely to be at least 10 years away.
There has so far been one patient who had a very complicated medical history but who has been able to cure HIV through several bone marrow transplants from a donor who has a rare genetic mutation that means HIV cannot infect their CD4 cells. More information on this widely reported case is at this link. This article also looks at his case and other HIV cure research.
Science has already been successful in making a huge progress in HIV in a short number of years since the virus was first identified. We can realistically, therefore, be hopeful that a cure will be found one day. In the meantime, however, we can be grateful for the highly effective HIV treatments that can give people with HIV a near normal life expectancy and a
good quality of life.
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