It is too early to completely cure AIDS. Do you understand ART therapy?

In recent years, with the advancement of medical technology, many people are more and more optimistic about the cure of AIDS. Some people claim that AIDS can be completely cured, and rumors about the advent of an AIDS vaccine have repeatedly appeared. So, can AIDS be completely cured?

Do you know what AIDS is?

First, let us understand the history of human beings' fight against AIDS, which can be roughly divided into the following stages:

1. 1981~1987 was the "incurable stage", when AIDS was regarded as a "world plague".

2.1987~1996 was the "refractory stage". In 1987, the world's first anti-AIDS drug came out, but the HIV virus soon developed drug resistance.

3.

The period from 1996 to the present is the "curable stage", during which antiretroviral therapy, or ART therapy, can be used to provide long-term, effective suppressive treatment for AIDS patients in order to improve their quality of life and prolong their survival.

From the above process, we can see that AIDS has gradually changed from a terminal illness to a controllable and curable chronic disease. So, can AIDS be completely cured?

The advent of antiretroviral therapy is a milestone in the treatment of AIDS. Currently, antiretroviral therapy can reduce the amount of HIV in AIDS patients to an undetectable level. However, antiretroviral therapy cannot completely eliminate the virus. In other words, after AIDS patients receive antiretroviral therapy, the HIV will still hide in some immune cells. If the patient stops receiving treatment, the virus will replicate crazily, so AIDS patients need lifelong treatment.

At the same time, antiretroviral therapy also faces the problem of drug resistance. According to statistics, among the 36.7 million AIDS patients in the world, 19.5 million patients have received antiretroviral treatment. Among them, the treatment effect of most patients is very good, but a small number of patients face the negative consequences of increased viral resistance. The World Health Organization's report shows that in 11 countries in Africa, Asia and Latin America, the drug resistance of HIV has increased significantly in 6 countries. When the HIV in the patient's body shows drug resistance, the treatment effect will be affected, and the patient may also spread the drug-resistant virus to others.

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In addition to antiretroviral therapy, functional cure therapy for AIDS has also attracted widespread attention. This therapy hopes to completely suppress the virus in AIDS patients so that conventional methods cannot detect the virus in the patient's blood, thereby maintaining the patient's normal immune function. However, judging from the current research results, functional cure therapy still faces severe challenges and needs further research and development.

In addition, there are reports that "an AIDS vaccine has been developed" and that the vaccine produces 100% antibodies and that volunteers tolerate the vaccine well. Many people regard this report as important evidence that "humanity has conquered AIDS", but this is a misunderstanding, because "100% antibody production" does not directly prove that this is a vaccine that can prevent AIDS. You must know that all vaccines will produce antibodies after being injected into the human body, and the AIDS virus is a complex virus. The production of antibodies does not mean that the vaccine recipient will not be infected, nor does it mean that the development of AIDS in AIDS patients will be blocked after receiving the vaccine (

The news of the AIDS vaccine is a rumor: data misinterpretation + taking things out of context

). In summary, mankind has achieved certain results in the treatment of AIDS, but it is too early to say that AIDS has been completely cured, and there is still a long way to go in the prevention and treatment of AIDS.

Author: Lu Hongzhou, Secretary of the Party Committee of Shanghai Public Health Clinical Center (Affiliated to Fudan University) and Assistant to the President of Huashan Hospital Affiliated to Fudan University. His main research direction is the pathogenesis and diagnosis and treatment of infectious diseases.

Contributed by "Da Yi Xiao Hu"