HIV/AIDS cure: Have doctors found a cure to the chronic and potentially life-threatening condition?

HIV/AIDS cure is one of the most discussed topics in the medical world. This is because the doctors, scientists, and other professionals in the medical field are trying to find ways and treatments that will finally end the disease and cure people.

Is the cure available now?

Avert directly admitted that the cure for HIV or AIDS is not yet available. There is no treatment for this chronic disease yet, so those who are suffering from it are only given medicines that can at least control the virus or slow down its progress.

Currently, patients are advised to get antiretroviral treatment, the current leading method in controlling the Human Immunodeficiency Virus that causes AIDS or Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome. With this treatment, it is possible for patients to live long and healthy, although the virus is still in the body.

It was said that scientists are doing research on how to totally get rid of the virus, but they found this risky and complicated. For this, they are looking into a thing called sterilizing cure. Another type of cure that they are working on is called the functional cure, wherein the aim is for this method to suppress the amount of HIV virus in the body.

The target for this functional cure is to lower the amount of the virus to the level that it can’t even be detected or make the infected person ill. With this, there will be no need for the antiretroviral treatment that is required throughout the life of the patient anymore.

New progress in the search for HIV/AIDS cure

Medical Xpress reported that researchers have developed a method that can pull the virus out of the latent reservoir that makes the HIV visible to the immune system. It was said that this also has a potential to kill the virus through treatment.

It was explained that one thing that makes it hard for HIV to be cured is - once the virus enters the body, some of them bury their selves in the dormant side of the cells. When this happens, they will be invisible and can’t be treated with antiretroviral drugs. This hiding virus called the “latent reservoir” is what preventing the cure of HIV/AIDS patients.

"The aim is to get it all out of dormancy with a targeted punch, so the remaining virus can be killed,” Eric Arts, lead researcher and Professor at Schulich Medicine and Dentistry at Western University said. "Now that we've shown that this can be done with patient samples at early HIV disease, the hope is this will lead to targeted cure strategies."

Once they perfected this method, HIV/AIDS cure will be available to treat those with the disease. However, it is understood that more tests are needed for this to be approved as a treatment.