The search for a cure is one of the central themes of this years meeting. In the course of the symposium, the renewed efforts to find a cure were reviewed, as well as the attitudes of people with HIV toward the perspective of finding one.
During the symposium “Towards an HIV Cure” was presented, a declaration that establishes the steps necessary to achieve a cure for infection by the virus.
At the meeting was scientists know about a cure was explained, how it can be achieved and the difficulties and challenges presented by this enterprise.
The renewed interest in finding a cure for HIV was inspired by the case of the “Berlin Patient.” This person was cured of his infection after a difficult chemotherapy treatment, immune-suppressive treatment and a bone marrow transplant, from a donor with a rare genetic mutation that gives a natural resistance to the infection of this virus.
It is not an attractive treatment — nor a realistic one — that could be applied to cure other people, but it raised the possibility of achieving a cure. In interest in finding a cure is also raised by the increasing cost of treatment and the attention of people with HIV.
November 12 2012
