Once considered a death sentence, HIV is now a treatable disease as a result of research done by UNC and across the globe.

UNC hosted their 17th annual World AIDS Day Symposium on Friday to discuss treatment and research for the future. Dr. Christopher Hurt, Clinical Assistant Professor at UNC, said a lot has changed in HIV treatment.

“At the initial part of HIV treatment in the mid 1990s, it was a full-time job,” he said. “Multiple pills multiple times a day, they often made people very sick in terms of side effects and now it’s light years ahead of what we used to have.”

Patients now have the option to take one pill a day, which is so effective that the pill plays a role in both treatment and prevention of further infection.

“A huge development, which UNC has been a part of is the idea of treatment as prevention,” UNC Clinical Assistant Professor Dr. Claire Farel said. “What that means is when people are on antiretroviral therapy, their viral load, which is the amount of HIV that is circulating in their blood, is nothing. It’s undetectable.”

She said the virus is still in the body, but because it is not in the bloodstream it is much less likely to spread to another person because the virus spreads from person to person through the contact of bodily fluids.

“We can get somebody to undetectable in a matter of weeks” Farel said. “Right now, six weeks is our expectation for somebody who has never been on medicine. When they start medicine, if they’re not undetectable in six weeks then we’ve failed them.”

Hurt said there is also preventive medication that people who are at risk can take to stop infection. He said people most at risk are men who have sex with men, injection drug users or someone who is in a relationship with someone with HIV.

“You can take a medication that’s approved by the FDA and that basically acts like a shield,” Hurt said. “If you’re exposed to the virus, it kills the virus before it has a chance to set up shop in the body.”

There are currently 36,000 cases of HIV in North Carolina. Because of the success of the medication developed, Hurt said they are able to start researching a possible cure for HIV, but doing so is difficult.

“One important part of the virus’ life cycle is that it becomes part of your own genes, your own DNA,” he said. “That’s the point where the cure is a challenge. It’s now a part of your genes, so in order to really cure it, we have to find a way to extract it, either by kicking it out of the genes or coaxing it out of the genes and then killing it.”

Farel said, even though there is a lot of optimism in HIV research, people must still remain cautious. HIV care is available at UNC and across the state.

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