How is it they can get ‘viral loads’ down to near undetectable levels but not outright kill off the virus?
In: Biology
Because the HIV virus does this fun thing where after it infects one of your immune system cells, it can stay in that cell for days or weeks before “activating” and making that cell make and release more copies of the virus.
And those immune systems cells are spread throughout your entire body, some constantly floating around in your blood.
Meaning it’s virtually impossible to full eradicate it because to do so you would have to kill every single one of those cells to guarantee there aren’t any hidden infections still in the body.
Which, is next to impossible.
So instead we have to play this constant game of Whack-a-mole, where anytime one of those secretly infected cells goes bad and decides to pop and release more viruses, the body is able to quickly kill most of those released viruses.
This is what keeping your vital load down means, constantly whacking these virus filled balloons that randomly pop to keep the HIV from completely over running your immune system.
TL:DR: HIV can hide in your cells for weeks, meaning you could think that you are HIV free, and then two days later one of these cells pops and releases a fresh swarm of viruses.
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