On 1 December, George Washington University in Washington, D.C., hosted “The Beginning of the End of AIDS,” a splashy World AIDS Day event that featured three U.S. presidents, business magnates, and rock stars. The catalyst that brought them together was something Anthony Fauci, the top U.S. government HIV/AIDS scientist, told the crowd even 1 year ago would have seemed “wishful thinking”: a clinical trial dubbed HPTN 052 and its “astounding” result.
HIV/AIDS researchers have long debated whether antiretroviral drugs (ARVs) used to treat HIV-infected people might have a double benefit and cut transmission rates. To some it was obvious: ARVs reduce HIV levels, so individuals should be less infectious. Skeptics contended that this was unproven. Indeed, a consensus statement issued by the Swiss Federal Commission for HIV/AIDS in 2008 that said effective ARV treatment could virtually stop heterosexual transmission was denounced as “appalling,” “inconclusive and irresponsible,” “dangerous,” and “misleading.” The Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS and the World Health Organization also responded with alarm, urging people to continue using condoms and stressing that semen or vaginal secretions might harbor the virus even when blood tests showed no trace of it. “More research is needed to determine the degree to which the viral load in blood predicts the risk of HIV transmission,” they cautioned.
There is also a second article published in Science Magazine about using ARVs as HIV Prevention.