Could An End to AIDS Be in Sight?

By: Heather Hajek
healthnews.com

Would you have thought that in ten years there may be an end to the AIDS epidemic? It seems that based on a mathematical model and data gathered from South Africa and Malawi, countries with high AIDS infection rates, it could actually come to fruition.

Charlie Gilks, an AIDS expert with the World Health Organization (WHO), headed a scientific study that tested residents of South Africa and Malawi yearly over a simulated ten-year period. If residents tested positive for HIV they were immediately given antiretroviral drugs to treat the deadly virus, and cases of the HIV infection dropped by 95 percent. Based on the mathematical model, the number of AIDS deaths from now until 2050 would be cut in half.

HIV or the AIDS virus is one of the most frightening and deadliest viruses ever known. There is enough of the HIV virus in blood, vaginal fluid, semen, and breast milk of people infected with HIV, to infect others. Most people are infected with the HIV virus by having sex with someone already infected, sharing a needle with an infected person, a baby who is born from a mother who is infected, or by drinking the breast milk of someone infected.

Just because someone has been infected by HIV doesn’t mean that they have AIDS. Someone who has been infected with HIV may be perfectly healthy and not realize they have the virus. However, eventually they may develop AIDS. The CDC estimates between 1 and1.2 million Americans have HIV or AIDS and around 25 percent of those don’t even know it. Approximately 40 percent diagnosed annually with AIDS are men and 25 percent are women. 50 percent of the newly diagnosed patients in the U.S. are black, of who only make up 12 percent of the United States population.

Currently there is no cure for AIDS, though antiretroviral therapy (ART) can slow down the HIV virus and slow the damage to a patient’s immune system. As long as patients are being treated with ART, most will continue a healthy life. In order for patients to prevent progression of the virus, they must continue treatment daily for the rest of their lives. This could be difficult to maintain and very expensive. However, this is one of the keys to success of AIDS prevention as discovered in the newly released study by WHO in The Lancet. Their simulated mathematical model evaluated patients diagnosed with the HIV virus and treated them immediately and continuously. The model showed that the quick and continuous treatment greatly reduced AIDS cases after ten years. However, doctors aren’t really sure if it is safe to take the drugs for life yet.

WHO plans to meet in 2009 and discuss the study more deeply. Dr. Kevin De Cock, director of WHO's HIV/AIDS department cautioned that “This is only a theoretical exercise." Though there are some negatives and unknowns to the newly released study the results show there is a possibility for an end to the AIDS epidemic.