© JUSTIN GABBARD
Since the early 1980s, when HIV was first identified, our knowledge of the virus—how it causes disease, how it interacts with our immune system, how it responds to drugs—has grown year by year. Drugs specifically designed to target HIV, and given as a cocktail of different agents—known as combination antiretroviral therapy (ART)—have decreased the mortality associated with HIV infection to the point where, for newly diagnosed individuals today, life expectancies are comparable to those who are HIV-negative.
But of the 35 million people currently living with HIV, the World Health Organization estimates that only around 40 percent use ART, partly because about half do not know they are infected. Providing ART to all who need it is a major challenge, and even when the drugs ...
