Is there a cure?In a scientific journal last month, researchers reported on the case of a man who appears to have been cured. He received treatment for cancer in Germany, including chemotherapy and radiation. Finally, he had a bone-marrow transplant from a donor with a natural resistance to HIV (which the researchers had specifically sought). The “cure,” a stem cell transplant fortified with a particular sort of HIVresistant strain, was grueling, brutal, and risky. The patient had a one-in-three chance of dying from each of the two transplants
Treating everyone with HIV in this way is not practical, affordable or safe (it would require total destruction of the immune system using chemotherapy and radiation - and then to find a bone marrow donor who also has resistance to HIV). But the case has energized researchers who are now looking for ways to replicate the cure. For more see here |  |
More hopes of cure - in the future
Australian scientists are hopeful that a synthetic form of Interleukin 7 (IL-7 , a natural immune substance in the human body involved in fighting HIV) will boost the body's response to HIV and allow the immune system to clear it completely. The results have only been shown in mice at this point, however, it is certainly will undergo further study and eventually study in humans. In fact this research may reach across to other infections too, like Hepatitis B and C. This research was published in medical journal CELL in february 2011.
A generation of babies who are hiv negative - now that is even better than cure
It is possible for HIV positive people to have children and NOT to infect their babies. Thanks to short-course ARV therapy (called PMTCT - Prevention of Mother To Child Transmission) pregnant HIV positive women can reduce their chance of infecting their baby to less than 1%. This means that 99 out of 100 babies born to HIV positive mothers will be born HIV negative. We even have mounting evidence that women who take ARVs can safely breastfeed their baby and enjoy the natural bonding and powerful life giving act that HIV negative women take for granted . That is powerful stuff.
vaccineThere have been a number of vaccines studied in trials over the last 2 decades, but none has showed great promise. In South Africa, a number of trials were shut down in 2008 after some very depressing news about vaccines not only being ineffective, but potentially harmful.
However, there is renewed optimism more recently but any possible vaccine is likely to take another 10 to 15 years before it would be available. FALSE AND FRAUDULENT CURES; claims abound: see this video from Siyanqoba |
