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The AIDS Cure

Even among intractable diseases, AIDS is particularly challenging. It starts with HIV (human immunodeficiency virus), which embeds itself in a victim’s DNA. Once infected, cells cannot get rid of it, as they can most other viruses. What’s more, HIV targets cells in the immune system, converting them from disease fighters into mini factories, which then churn out more copies of the virus. Months or years later, the number of immune cells drops so low that a person becomes susceptible to all sorts of opportunistic infections and develops AIDS (acquired immune deficiency syndrome).

If taken early enough, antiretroviral medication can prevent AIDS by keeping HIV levels in check, and…

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Featured

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A vaccine's job is to teach the immune system to recognize the disease and create antibodies to fight it off. So far, that hasn't worked with HIV. "AIDS integrates into the immune system. It mutates incredibly rapidly, making it a moving target for the immune system...

Previously Featured

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The 2000 Aids conference in Durban shocked the world into action. Now, a new crisis looms, one fuelled by drug resistance, costly treatments and the lack of power many women have in sexual relationships.

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Resources

30 Years In, We Are Still Learning From AIDS

At first it seemed an oddity: a scattering of reports in the spring and early summer of 1981 that young gay men in New York and California were ill with forms of pneumonia and cancer usually seen only in people with severely weakened immune systems. In hindsight, of course, these announcements were the first official harbingers of AIDS — the catastrophic pandemic that would infect more than 60 million people (and counting) worldwide, killing at least half that number.

AIDS Healthcare Foundation

Funding lifesaving emergency relief, global efforts to end HIV and AIDS, and so much more

AIDS United

In the ongoing work for social justice and true equity, ending the HIV epidemic in the United States is our chosen role.

United Nations

Since the start of the epidemic around 84.2 million people have acquired HIV and around 40.1 million people have died of AIDS-related illnesses. In 2021, there were 38.4 million people living with HIV. 54% of all people living with HIV were women and girls.