WHO Says HIV Treatment In 10 Years

Yahoo News comments on the HIV elimination from Lancet.

It is an intriguing solution to end the AIDS epidemic. But it is based on assumptions rather than data, and is riddled with logistical problems. The research was published online Tuesday in the medical journal, The Lancet.

"It's quite a startling result," said Charlie Gilks, an AIDS treatment expert at the World Health Organization and one of the paper's authors. "In a relatively short amount of time, we could potentially knock the epidemic on its head."

Gilks and colleagues used data from South Africa and Malawi. In their model, people were voluntarily tested each year and immediately given drugs if they tested positive for HIV, regardless of whether they were sick.

Within 10 years, HIV infections dropped by 95 percent. Other initiatives like safe sex education and male circumcision were also used.

The strategy would cut the estimated number of AIDS deaths between 2008 and 2050 by about half, from about 8.7 million to 3.9 million, leaving only sporadic HIV cases.

The preview in the Lancet reads "The authors of the “Swiss statement” assert that the risk of HIV transmission from people on effective antiretroviral therapy is negligible, despite the absence of studies large enough to provide empirical evidence. Although determination of viral titres in source partners is not typical practice, cases of transmission from effectively treated people have been reported.1 Furthermore, although HIV might be undetectable in blood, it can be present in semen or genital fluids at infectious amounts."