Originally Posted by
3Greens
There’s no vaccine for HIV, but big pharmaceutical companies make a load of money with the antiviral drugs that treat the disease though....make of that what you will.
Or perhaps people should make some research before jumping to conclusions?
Here's a link highlighting the problems scientists are having with HIV:
https://www.healthline.com/health/hi...e-we#obstacles
This is particularly interesting as some seems to think finding a corona vaccine is going to be equally hard to come up with as it is with HIV.
"Most vaccines protect against viruses that enter the body through the respiratory or gastrointestinal systems. More viruses enter the body in these two ways, so we have more experience addressing them. But HIV enters the body most often through genital surfaces or the blood. We have less experience protecting against viruses that enter the body in those ways."
"Vaccines protect against disease, not infection. HIV is an infection until it progresses to stage 3, or
AIDS. With most infections, vaccines buy the body more time to clear the infection on its own before disease occurs. However, HIV has a long dormant period before it progresses to AIDS. During this period, the virus hides itself in the DNA of the person with the virus. The body can’t find and destroy all of the hidden copies of the virus to cure itself. So, a vaccine to buy more time won’t work with HIV."
This last quote is talking about latent provirus (virus genome integrated into the DNA of the host cell) reservoirs in the CD4+ T cells. This is one of the huge challenges with finding a vaccine and a cure for HIV.
Finding a vaccine for the COVID19, and similar virus, on the other hand is routine work for medical professionals and scientists today. They just need time and from what I can see we are talking about 12-18 months before we have one (or more) available for mass distribution / vaccination.
Don't let facts ruin a good story though. ;-)
CP