Stone cold sober

I’ve just had a short break combing attendance at a conference and a short holiday.

My post-holiday good mood was sustained by two studies reporting important treatment advances. Some newer anti-HIV drugs are proving highly effective in people with extensive experience of anti-HIV treatment and who previously had very limited treatment options. Doctors who talk about people with HIV living a near-normal lifespan are looking realistic, not optimistic.

But my mood was sobered by two studies presented to the conference on the social aspects of HIV that some of my colleagues and I attended. These studies showed that the experience of living with HIV was similar to that of living with serious cancer and that most people with HIV have unpleasant physical symptoms and psychological distress. I found this particularly interesting as an analysis of studies looking at the risk of cancer in people with HIV found that HIV increases the risk of developing some tumours linked with infections. The researchers who conducted the study concluded that cancer was likely to become an increasingly important cause of illness and death in people with HIV.

So, although it is important to acknowledge that potent anti-HIV treatment has transformed the prognosis of many people with HIV, it’s equally important to recognise that there is no cure for HIV and to admit that HIV will, tragically, still mean illness, hardship, and even a premature death for many people living with the virus.

Anti-HIV treatment

HIV and illness

New from NAM