How do you view the past 40 years of HIV research?
The first step was of course the identification of the virus and the implementation of screening tests. The first drugs worked poorly and were very toxic. Subsequently, the effectiveness was there but the treatments were poorly tolerated. HIV-positive young people sometimes abandoned by their families at first. Even today, it is a disease that stigmatizes. Today, treatments make patients non-contagious, undetectable. After a few months there is no longer any danger of transmission. They are no longer considered virus bombs. They can have a normal sex life or even have children.
How do we live with AIDS in 2023?
Pretty good. Once detected, and following their treatment seriously, HIV-positive patients have the same life expectancy as others. We have preventive treatments with PrEP (pre-exposure prophylaxis which prevents the HIV virus from developing and settling as soon as it enters the body, editor’s note), which is also a revolution since we would never have imagined having a treatment that allows you to live well but also to avoid infection. AIDS is a disease that is not always well accepted, and people are sometimes afraid to take the test when there should be a lot of screening. In France, the epidemic is still active and 5,000 to 6,000 people become infected each year. If we tracked everyone, the epidemic would die out! Poor countries are unfortunately less armed and too many people are not treated. There are still many human tragedies in the face of an epidemic that still strongly marks African countries.
What are the prospects for the future?
On our side, we continue to campaign for the wearing of condoms. There are ways to improve treatment. Switch from a treatment to be taken every day to an injectable solution every two months, for example. We are still working on a possible vaccine, but it is a very variable virus. It is therefore very difficult to develop a vaccine that is effective against all HIV viruses. For the moment, we cannot totally eliminate the virus from the genome of the cells. I hope we will get there eventually, but there will always be a treatment to take for the next 10-15 years.