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24.12.2011

Over the three decades since HIV was identified, there have been many and varied efforts to educate people about the disease and to try to change the negative attitudes towards those living with it. However, as the science of ARV treatment continues to transform the lives of many, the prejudice and discrimination attached to HIV positive people persists. Although there is a certain stigma attached to other diseases such as tuberculosis (TB), there is something unique about HIV which creates an irrational fear of those living with the disease. Many people argue that HIV stigma is perhaps fuelled by the association of HIV with sexual transmission, death, emaciation and significant weight loss in the end stages of disease, all of which seem to evoke this emotional and sometimes personal projection of fear and discrimination.
Read | Address stigma or reaching zero will remain a fantasy | http://blogs.independent.co.uk/2011/12/01/world-aids-day-address-hiv-stigma-or-reaching-zero-will-remain-a-fantasy/
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A world first: Timothy Ray Brown, better known as the Berlin Patient, the first person to be cured of Aids through a medical procedure
Even a couple of years ago, talk of "curing" Aids was regarded as dangerously over-optimistic. HIV was seen as a life-long infection that could be controlled by combinations of antiviral drugs but not cured.
Now a cure is on the agenda of every scientific meeting about HIV, and research funding agencies such as the Gates Foundation and US National Institutes of Health are providing grants explicitly to find ways for patients to stop taking drugs and live normally without medication.
The quest is personified by Timothy Ray Brown, better known as the Berlin Patient, who has become a living legend in the world of medical research as the first person to be cured of Aids through a medical procedure.
Doctors in Berlin eradicated HIV from Mr Brown, a 45-year-old American living in the city, through bone marrow transplants from a donor who was resistant to infection through a rare genetic mutation. This would not be practical for general use but its success, even in one case, has inspired scientists to look for ways to achieve the same effect without the risk, cost and complexity.
The Rome Statement for an HIV Cure, launched in July at this year's biggest scientific conference on Aids, called for a concerted international effort to achieve "at least a functional cure for HIV".
Read | Science: ‘Functional cure’ is global target | http://medical-center-health.blogspot.com/2011/11/pozhealth-science-functional-cure-is.html