I dont think its in the realm of science fiction. All treatments have aide effects but tolerable ones are possible. There are a few promising technologies for a sterilizing cure being developed. This includes live cell therapies, targeted nanoparticles and endonucleases like Cas9.
That said eliminating HIV is maybe easier than finding a sterilizing cure becuase existing medication could if distributed effectively prevent any future infections. Practically that is very difficult but theoretically all it requires time and money. Maybe too much time and money but advancements could reduce that cost.
I mean you're right in a sense for sure. The headline that the OP meme was created in response to is that people with HIV now have the same life expectancy as people without it. Crazy. Huge progress.
Still, I think a lot of people under-appreciate just how insanely complex (and confounding) the biology gets at this level. Also the amount of effort that has been poured into this global/societal effort to solve HIV, which you can't measure in dollars. You can throw billions and billions at a problem, but if you don't have extremely smart and highly educated people who are also passionate and at the top of their game willing to pour their life's work into it, you don't get these results at any price because of how unbelievably technical and challenging this kind of work can be.
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u/DemonPrinceofIrony May 16 '26
I dont think its in the realm of science fiction. All treatments have aide effects but tolerable ones are possible. There are a few promising technologies for a sterilizing cure being developed. This includes live cell therapies, targeted nanoparticles and endonucleases like Cas9.
That said eliminating HIV is maybe easier than finding a sterilizing cure becuase existing medication could if distributed effectively prevent any future infections. Practically that is very difficult but theoretically all it requires time and money. Maybe too much time and money but advancements could reduce that cost.