Can HIV and AIDS be cured? And more Q&As on the virus and disease

Anyone who has ever had sex with another person without a condom is at risk of having caught HIV. It can be as easy as just having sex once without a condom with someone who is HIV-positive (who might not even know it). However, there are many misconceptions about the virus. Dr Nneka Nwokolo dispels the myths and explains how someone who is infected with HIV can still live a normal life…

Myths about HIV and AIDS

There are many myths about HIV and AIDS. A lot of them relate to how you can catch HIV. It’s important to know that you can’t catch HIV from normal social contact. You can't catch HIV from kissing someone or from sharing utensils or from sleeping in the same bed or sharing a bath. It really is only transmitted sexually or through contaminated blood. A person on effective treatment is basically very similar to somebody who doesn't have HIV at all and that they can’t transmit the virus to other people. They can’t transmit it to their sexual partners but neither can women who are pregnant transmit it to their babies which are something that used to happen when treatment was not available.

We now know also that the life expectancy of a person who has HIV and who is on effective treatment will be the same and sometimes even longer than the life expectancy of somebody without HIV. Treatment has been very successful in this area.

Other myths are that you can cure HIV or treat HIV with natural and herbal remedies. This is not true. The only way to control HIV is by taking antiretroviral drugs or medicines that are specifically made to target the virus and these drugs stop the virus from multiplying and so reduce the levels of virus in the bloodstream to levels that are low enough that the immune system is not damaged.

Are HIV and AIDS the same thing?

HIV and AIDS are not the same things, HIV refers to the virus and also to the stage of being infected with the HIV virus. AIDS is a condition that happens in people who have HIV but who don’t receive effective treatment. In these people, the immune system becomes so badly damaged that they aren’t able to fight off infections that live commonly in their environment and so they develop severe illnesses related to a damaged immune system. That is called AIDS. Nowadays, with the effective treatment, we hardly ever see people with AIDS anymore. Certainly, in the developed world where treatment is available, it’s becoming very rare.

Can HIV be cured?

HIV can’t be cured but it can be very effectively controlled and now with effective treatment, when we look for the virus in the blood of people who have HIV, we can’t find it and people who are on effective treatment live a long and healthy life can have children without HIV and also don’t transmit HIV to their partners. Although it’s not cured, it is effectively no longer a problem for most people who have it.