We have noted reports about HIV cure in UK. Some media houses prematurely announced that HIV cure has been found, this isn’t true, it is misleading and pose a serious threat in the behavior of people.
There is an ongoing study in UK, 50 HIV positive people are currently on treatment trial. They were given a drug that forces the virus to emerge from hiding places in the body and a vaccine that aim to boost the immune system so that it can attack HIV-infected cells. This strategy is known as “kick and kill”. Scientist announced that presently the virus is completely undetectable in the man’s blood (one of the 50 people on treatment trials) after he completed the kick and kill treatment. The virus can also be undetectable for patients on ARVs, but they remain HIV positive even though it would be undetectable, it will be hiding somewhere in the body.
We are excited to hear that the kick and kill strategy has successfully worked in lab and it looks like it has also worked for one patient. However there is still a lot to be done, the ongoing research will be completed in 2018, for now we can only pray and hope that it will work. Let us continue with prevention strategies, Test and Treat (all HIV positive patient can now start on ARVs regardless on their CD4 count) and fight against HIV/Aids stigma.
#HIVMustFall
Sanele Sano Ngcobo
Issued: 04/10/2016 , 08:30
