After more than 30 years of living in a World where there is still no cure for HIV/Aids the drug companies may have finally broken the code that will see an HIV vaccine become a reality.
There have been exponential leaps made in the management of the HIV virus with effective management with drugs seeing HIV infected people living very normal lives in every sense. We can be very sure that the life of an HIV infected person is more likely to be long and fruitful when the Insurance companies started offering life insurance policies to HIV positive people. Life Insurers are the most cautious and risk averse companies on the planet which is evidenced by their enormous earnings and perhaps it is the actuaries at these very companies that had meetings with or courted the drug companies on the progress they were making with drugs to manage and/or vaccinate against HIV.
The treatment of HIV in the absence of an HIV vaccine has moved rapidly in the last five or so years from taking a handful of drugs daily to South Africa implementing the single dose HIV treatment last year for anyone living with HIV.
A vaccine against HIV will put it into the same category as illnesses which devastated our World in the past like Polio, measles and small pox amongst others. The most recent statistics of HIV infected people stands at over 36 million with as many people having died from health conditions as a result of HIV infection. Currently in Sub Saharan African a massive 5% of the total population is infected with the HIV virus.
According to vaccinologists the HIV virus presents a number never before encountered issues when it comes to producing a vaccine in that it has wide ranging genetic diversity and the fact that there is no known case of natural immunity to study. Currently there are a number of concepts which are heading toward clinical trials, each of which holds great prospects. While a vaccine may still be a number of years away and we understand more and more about the virus, the stigma which once plagued our nation and resulted in many suicides, early deaths and unprecedented transmission has become accepted as a lifestyle illness that can be controlled with drugs.
If you are HIV positive or know someone who is HIV positive do not despair, the Worlds drug companies are spending Billions of Dollars to find effective treatments and come up with a vaccine. Live life to the full, prepare for your retirement and do everything as if you did not have the virus. There is absolutely no reason to live in fear, you are more likely to die in a car accident nowadays than die from an HIV related illness.