Why can we get HIV to a viral load of 0 but can’t get rid of the virus?

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Why can we get HIV to a viral load of 0 but can’t get rid of the virus?

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Anonymous 0 Comments

I wanted to talk a little about this because I’m currently working in an HIV lab and kind of know the basics of this!

Essentially, HIV does this thing where it gets into the DNA of cells and can stay there indefinitely. It won’t always be expressed, which is why you can get the viral load down to 0; the virus isn’t being produced when it’s not expressed. However, because it stays inside your cells, it can start producing virus at any time (I’m not too sure about the specifics of this but that’s essentially what happens). That’s why there is no cure, because we currently have no way of isolating cells in your body that have this HIV DNA and getting rid of them. Not only does it get into random immune cells, it can also put itself randomly at any place in the DNA, which makes it a lot harder to target.

I hope this makes sense! And if anyone wants to correct me please do, I’m still learning 🙂

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