Hope for a cure

Hope for a cure

The International AIDS Society (IAS)  has urged world leaders at a UN General Assembly high-level meeting on HIV/AIDS (UNGASS) to integrate a fourth pillar – HIV cure research ­­­– into the global response to the
epidemic.

World leaders are meeting this week to review progress and chart the future course of the global AIDS response in New York. In this historic month, which marks both 30 years since the first reported AIDS cases and 10 years since the UNGASS Declaration of Commitment on HIV/AIDS was adopted, the IAS is calling on all stakeholders in the global response to AIDS to adopt the new pillar into the current three pillar approach of
‘prevention, treatment and care’.

Globally, there are currently 33.3 million people living with HIV and, while much scientific progress has been made over the past three decades, there is still no cure for HIV.

Although significant progress has also been made towards scaling up access to antiretroviral treatment, the increase in new infections in certain regions, a decrease in funding, and the fact that under new
World Health Organisation guidelines HIV patients should be starting their treatment regimens much earlier, means that universal access targets are way off track.

As new infections continue to outstrip numbers on treatment by 2 to 1 in resource-limited settings, the scale of unmet need can only increase.

The International AIDS Society has made HIV cure one of its policy priorities and Professor Françoise Barré-Sinoussi, co-discoverer of HIV, Nobel Laureate and IAS President-elect, is currently guiding the
development of a global scientific strategy towards an HIV Cure.

This strategy aims at building a global consensus on the state of the art research in the field of HIV reservoirs and defining scientific priorities that must be addressed to tackle HIV persistence in patients undergoing treatment, the key hurdle impeding any alternative to long-term therapy.

The IAS is urging leaders at UNGASS to look towards the example of the eradication of the smallpox virus for motivation to ensure the inclusion of HIV cure research and its global development.

For more information on the IAS, visit: www.iasociety.org

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2 responses to “Hope for a cure”

  1. The final scene in the film “Longtime Companion” shows people earnestly looking forward to the day when HIV is defeated: “It’ll be like the end of World War Two”.

    Please let that day be soon!

  2. I just love the last four words to the article… “and its global development” like a company outlinning its profit margin & customer base. Truth is New South Wales activerly encouraged & ultimately preached their clients to accept their own death & give up all hope. This is not represented in any study and therfore invalidates all data in NSW. Time to wake up & have a closer look in our own backyard before worrying about what occurs in someone eles’s backyard?