We must continue to hope for a medical breakthrough. At present a “cocktail” of toxic and expensive drugs has been developed that can slow down the progression of HIV into full-blown AIDS, but these drugs only treat the symptoms without eliminating the underlying cause. These drugs also have side effects that can be as dangerous as the disease itself.
Even worse, there are several strains of HIV. A person infected with one strain can be reinfected with another, and then another. An article in the September 2004 Journal of the American Medical Association refers to such reinfection as “superinfection,” and indicates that a second infection will result in much worse symptoms. The author of the study was quoted as saying: “We are dealing with a new weapon of mass destruction here.”
Most scientists agree that the HIV virus mutates so rapidly that there is little likelihood of a cure in the foreseeable future.
