HIV and AIDS Latest News 2017: Is There a Cure?
Will there be a cure for HIV and AIDS? Researchers remain hopeful that they could unravel the cure, and they are now talking about suppressing the amount of HIV in the body to low levels towards totally eradicating it through sterilization.
But it could be a long road ahead. Scientists have argued that the current antiretroviral treatment and use of HIV vaccine can be considered as a cure, however, patient's experience shows that it only offers partial protection and would need to be used in combination with other treatments.
Treatment of HIV and AIDS requires suppressing the virus without the need to go through the antiretroviral treatment. While it would not make the virus go away, it would significantly lower the amount of HIV to hardly make a dent on the infected person. Another approach being considered is through sterilization where all HIV virus is eradicated from the body.
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Unusual cases may hold the clue to the cure for HIV and AIDS. The best-known case is on a Berlin patient named Timothy Ray Brown who is the first and only person ever to be cured of HIV. In 2006, Brown found out that he had acute myeloid leukemia. He had been taking medicine for HIV for years.
After his failed chemotherapy treatment, Brown went to Berlin where he got two bone marrow transplants from an HIV-resistant donor. Ten years later, he was leukemia and HIV free.
Scientists and researchers are looking into his case for a possible indication that could lead to a cure. Among the approaches being considered include the "shock and kill" approach, to flush out the virus out of its habitat; gene editing, to change immune cells so they cannot be infected by HIV; immune modulation, to permanently change the immune system to better fight HIV; and stem cell transplants, to eliminate a person's infected immune system and replace it with a non-infected one from a donor.
These promising pieces of scientific research and data may one day lead to a cure, but the one point that should not be missed is to know one's HIV status through early detection. If the result of HIV test is positive, treatment should be started right away to prevent the damage to the immune system.
