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Treatment, not a cure
There is no cure for HIV. However, when taken properly, combinations of different antiretroviral drugs can reduce the amount of HIV in the blood to levels so low that they cannot be detected using the tests that we currently have.
Reducing the amount of HIV, or HIV viral load, has been shown to reduce the risk of becoming ill or dying because of HIV. So, reducing HIV viral load, and keeping it low, is the aim of anti-HIV treatment.
In the UK and the US, the aim of HIV treatment for people who have never taken HIV drugs before and most other people with experience of HIV treatment is to get and maintain an undetectable viral load – i.e. a viral load below 50, the cut-off point for the ultrasensitive tests in routine use.
As your HIV viral load goes down, your immune system will start to recover. This should be indicated by an increase in your CD4 cell count, and there’s also a good chance that you’ll notice an improvement in your health at the same time, if you have been ill due to HIV.
If you have taken lots of HIV drugs, and still have a detectable viral load, then the aim of your treatment might be to boost your CD4 cell count to protect you from infections rather than to achieve an undetectable viral load.
Some researchers have looked at whether treatment with anti-HIV drugs can eliminate, or eradicate, HIV from the body. It was thought by some doctors that treatment during the very early stages of HIV might offer the best chance of achieving this. But even though treatment with powerful combinations of anti-HIV drugs can be successful at getting viral load down to very low levels, HIV will still infect cells and reproduce itself at those very low levels. Anti-HIV drugs can’t kill these cells. This means that, with the currently available drugs, eradication of HIV is not possible.
Even when HIV is being suppressed to undetectable low levels, the remaining virus could rebound to high levels if you stop taking your anti-HIV drugs. What’s more, anti-HIV drugs are less good at controlling HIV replication in the brain.