It’s being reported that HIV is now curable, for the most part. A recent study is claiming that 14 adults, plus a baby, have been cured of the disease. The new study in the journal PLOS Pathogens has been presented as exciting news for those who’ve been engaged in the long fight to control the deadly epidemi.
“Our results show that early and prolonged cART may allow some individuals with a rather unfavorable background to achieve long-term infection control and may have important implications in the search for a functional HIV cure,” the researchers claim.
The adults technically have HIV in their blood, but it’s hard to detect its presence. This is the definition of being “functionally cured.” There were 70 people in the study, with all of them being treated early in the process of their HIV infections. Early is defined as 5 – 10 weeks of the date of infection.
Most of the 70 people relapsed when their treatment was interrupted, with the virus rebounding rapidly to pre-treatment levels. But 14 of them — four women and 10 men — were able to stay off of ARVs without relapsing, having taken the drugs for an average of three years.
The study now concludes that roughly 5 – 15 percent of all people are able to be functionally cured of the virus, according to one of the researchers, Dr. Asier Saez-Cirion.
“They still have HIV, it is not eradication of HIV, it is a kind of remission of the infection,” the doctor said.
That would be a great development indeed.
The hope of the infected and affected population will no doubt be rekindled by this significant progress towards eradicating the HIV/AIDS virus completely. Kudos to the researchers and we can only wish them more progress.
Cool one.progress is been made