How Close Are We to Finding a Cure for HIV?

David Rosenthal, DO, PhD, medical director for the Center for Young Adult, Adolescent and Pediatric HIV Care at Northwell Health, discusses how close researchers are to finding a cure for HIV.

Interview Transcript (slightly modified for readability)

“[The National Institute of Health (NIH) has] been increasing the funding and decreasing the funding for many, many years, and so, [when it comes to the question of] how close it is? I don’t know. I believe in the work that Anthony Fauci is doing and I think that the NIH is certainly getting much closer than we were. I think that 2015 was a very good year for HIV cure and HIV prevention in ways we haven’t seen in previous years due to several new breakthroughs in clinical trials.

I’m not a soothsayer; I can’t tell you exactly when it’s going to happen. I think that we’re getting closer than we were, but just like we’ve been working for many, many years for diseases like cancer, and finding a cure for cancer, a vaccine for cancer, we haven’t been fully effective in doing that for many cancers. We still aren’t quite there yet for HIV; I think we have some work still to do, so I’m not expecting something to happen in the coming year but I also don’t think that it’s going to be 50 years from now when we’re going to have some answers.”