HIV is one of those health conditions that we all naturally associate as one of the worst in the world to get. There’s no doubt that it is a very problematic condition, and the fact that it leads on to AIDS makes it all the more threatening. But good news may be on the horizon for us as there has been some excellent progress made in our attempts to fight the condition.
According to new research, treating people very quickly after they become infected with the HIV virus may be enough to achieve a ‘functional cure’ in a small proportion of patients who are diagnosed early enough. A team of scientists in France who followed 14 patients who were treated swiftly with HIV drugs but then stopped treatment found that even when they had been off therapy for more than seven years they still showed no signs of the virus coming back and causing further problems.
The results of the research showed that the number of infected cells circulating in the blood of these patients, who are known as “post-treatment controllers”, kept falling even though they had no treatment for a number of years.
A ‘functional cure’ is when the virus is reduced to such low levels that it is kept at bay even without having to continue taking drugs. The virus is still detectable in the body but it is not doing anything that causes the body any harm.
A large proportion of the 34 million people who currently live with HIV around the world will have to take anti-AIDS drugs known as anti-retroviral therapy for the rest of their lives. These drugs generally keep the disease in check but also come with the drawbacks of side-effects and being expensive.
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