Will there be a permanent cure for AIDS in our lifetime?

[fredv3b]

Has any viral disease ever been cured? I can't think of any from memory (it's a Sunday morning so please correct me if I am wrong).

Some people infected with Hepatitis B will manage to clear it from their bodies completely others become chronically infected. Anti-viral drugs do increase the number of people who manage to clear it completely, but if I recall correctly, not by much. So I would not class Hepatitis B as a illness that can be cured.

Call me old-fashioned but I really think that developing a vaccine against HIV is far more important than a cure for AIDS. Given that there are numerous viral disease for which we have created vaccines this seems much more do-able. There is one important snag, for all the viral disease for which we have vaccines some people's immune system will cure them, they will then be immune to further infection. The vaccine merely skips the step of actual illness, during which time some may die and others suffer permanent damage to their bodies. There just aren't people who have become infected with HIV and then cured themselves. A second problem is that HIV is a hyper-variable virus, a vaccine would need to be effective against virtually all strains of the virus.

All that said, I still think a vaccine is whether the bulk of research effort should be.

The other thing to remember that a huge number of infections, world-wide, would be prevent if men simply used a condom with any women other than their wives. Sounds so simple doesn't it? Changing human behaviour is bloody difficult.


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