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 There is hope... but don't ask me for a date because we do not know 

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Francoise Barre-Sinoussi, who won the Nobel Prize in Medicine in 2008 as part of a team that discovered the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV), which causes AIDS, said scientific research was zeroing in on a cure for the illness.

She cited a patient in Berlin who appears to have been cured through a bone marrow transplant, "which proves that finding a way of eliminating the virus from the body is something that is realistic."

Other sources of optimism are the small minority of patients -- less than 0.3 percent -- who exhibit no symptoms of the virus without ever receiving treatment; and a small group in France who received antiretroviral drugs and now live without treatment or symptoms, Barre-Sinoussi said.

"There is hope... but don't ask me for a date because we do not know."

She also said that it would be possible "in principle" to eliminate the AIDS pandemic by 2050, if barriers to drug access could be eliminated.

The main barriers there were not scientific but political, economic and social, she said: the problem was lack of access to testing and drugs in poor and rural areas, as well as the stigma around the virus, which undermines early detection and treatment.

Some 25,000 people -- including celebrities, scientists and HIV sufferers -- are expected in the US capital on Sunday to call for more strident global action to address the three-decade AIDS epidemic.

Deaths and infections are down in the parts of the world most ravaged by the disease, while the number of people on treatment has risen 20 percent from 2010 to 2011, reaching eight million people in needy countries.

However this is only about half the people who should be on treatment worldwide, suggesting much more remains to be done.

More than 34 million people worldwide are living with HIV, a higher number than ever before, and around 30 million have died from AIDS-related causes since the disease first emerged in the 1980s, according to UNAIDS.

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Tue Jun 18 07:52:36 SAST 2013 ::

Jul 20, 2012

Papage

"She also said that it would be possible "in principle" to eliminate the AIDS pandemic by 2050, if barriers to drug access could be eliminated"

I will be gone then, so it wont be in our life time and hope our Children and grand children will be helped by this. Wish you all the luck DR
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Jul 20, 2012

kgoro

I think she is dreaming-you will never find cure for AIDS-ONLY GOD CURES AIDS**IN JESUS NAME
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Jul 20, 2012

Mbeva

Seeing is believing
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Jul 20, 2012

letwadi

When former President Mbeki questioned some of the finding and side effects of their research, he was lablled a denialist. It's a well known story of that lady, whose boobs grew to her toes and those babies born deformed in the EC, that the cause was the effect on this arv given to this people, without conducting proper tests. Now, the leraned doctor is coming up with some new discoveries which will take years before they are effective and as is the norm only the rich and the western patient will be the first to sample this new discovery, while africa and her children lag another 100 years behind
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Jul 20, 2012

Papage

I listened to Our Health Minister yesterday saying the % of babies born with HIV have dropped, but what about those who are born deformed and some mentally challenged cause of HIV preventative pills? and "Did you know that Kids born from HIV Mothers will depend on drugs for survival for the rest of their lives"? they will be drug addicts.
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Jul 20, 2012

keepchange

@Letwadi, you are a man ! and deserve a Bell.
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Jul 20, 2012

FarCeSpotter

letwadi

Please talk about the millions of people who have been helped by ARVs with minor effects. Many of whom would be dead by now, had it not been for these medicines.

With these drugs HIV is now seen as a chronic disease - not curable, but treatable.

Sorry no Bells !
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Jul 20, 2012

MommaC

letwadi

Honey, if African children were the first to sample the drugs then you would be shouting blue murder about them being used as guinea-pigs.

Lets see. Big boobs or a coffin? Not much of a choice there. I'd keep tripping over the boobs in the hopes of a better treatment coming along. Its hard to reverse the effects of 'dead'
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Jul 23, 2012

SOLUTIONS

I'd keep tripping over the boobs in the hopes of a better treatment coming along. Its hard to reverse the effects of 'dead'

-------
I always enjoy your comments, maybe one could go for a death reduction.
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Jul 23, 2012

Tasto

Aaagh man, someone somewhere doesn't not know the cure for Aids but they have it already.Pharmacetical\drug cartels won't allow their investments returns to vanish!! Funny all the person who have been cured as claimed are most white people and its a sad fact blacks are just guinea-pigs of vaccine trials for these drug cartels!!
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