Despite the challenges that 377A, and the current political climate poses to our community, we are growing stronger. Increasingly, more are coming out of the closet too, living ordinary lives with their partners, and some, with their children, albeit, legally unrecognised.
Advances in medication now mean that the virus can no longer be detected in my blood, so it’s impossible for me to transmit it to anybody
There are many dangers you need to be aware of, and some tips to keep safe if you are using drugs like this. These drugs can be highly addictive. Guys usually start using for fun, and believe they are using responsibly, saying things like “I only use on weekends” or “I’m in control of how much I use.”
PrEP use has been rising in other countries, and some cities have also seen drops in new HIV diagnoses. San Francisco saw a 17 per cent fall in infection rates in 2015. “We are convinced that PrEP is responsible for the large decreases in new diagnoses,” Portman said in a tweet about the announcement.
So here’s the truth. You may not want HIV, but if you have it, it’s much better to know you are HIV-positive so you can seek treatment and get back to living a happy, healthy, tra-la-la life.
PrEP doesn’t legitimise dangerous or unsafe sex; it serves as a protection which those who are sexually active in the gay community would be foolish to refuse if offered to them.
It’s not those on PrEP who are the foolhardy risk takers – it’s the ones who deny their risk and disassociate themselves from these conversations who are taking the real chances. It just takes one time, that one slip up, to change your life forever.
As a gay person living with HIV in a conservative Asian society like Singapore, Avin Tan shares the challenges he faced and life-lessons he learnt after his diagnosis and coming out in the public. He calls for a less discriminating society and a better HIV educated community.
Avin Tan is one of Singapore’s most prominent HIV advocate, and is only the second person to come out as a person living with HIV in Singapore. He stands for the equal rights and support for people living with HIV, as well as better access to care and treatment.
This talk was given at a TEDx event using the TED conference format but independently organized by a local community. Learn more at http://ted.com/tedx
Innovative novel therapy making news is always exciting, and brings with it, hope. Because while there have been great advancements in the realm of HIV treatment, but eradicating it proves to be a challenge today. HIV integrates with host T cells, white blood cells causing lifelong infection. Newer and better drugs are being introduced ever so often, and Highly Active Antiretroviral Therapy (HAART) has successfully controlled the amount of newly formed virus, preventing new cells from being infected, and effectively lowering the viral load. This has slowed down the spread of the virus, and brought about a tremendous improvement in the well-being of persons living with HIV (PLHIV). PLHIVs are living better, longer, more fulfilled lives than before.
HAART has served the community well for the last 2 decades and will continue to do so for many more to come. Yet, many people I speak to, often pray and hope for a cure, or that they do not have to rely on a daily dose of medication, that allows people like myself to continue to live our lives, our life now is largely dependent on the drugs. It’s restrictive, it serves as a daily reminder for some, and for many, an added burden on our already limited monthly income. HIV drugs, though much more affordable and accessible now, still is expensive in this part of the world. The fear of treatment failures continues to plague many too, despite many reassurance from the pharmaceutical and scientific community.
Which brings us to gene editing. With the introduction of a revolutionary tool known as CRISPR (pronoused as crisper) for editing genes, and in this case, it targets the removal of some parts (CCR5) of our T-cell and prevents the virus from attaching itself onto the cell in the first place. This helps the cell protects itself against an HIV infection. According to studies, in patients infected with HIV, mutations resulting in resistance to antiretroviral therapy (ART) was a major cause of treatment failure. It might be possible to assess these resistance mutations by using genotyping tests that could probe specific mutations in the HIV genome or in the sequencing of specific genes and edit those genes accordingly.
The main hurdle toward eradicating HIV is that it integrates into long-lived immune cells, such as memory helper T cells, which don’t actively express all HIV genes, with the HIV genome remaining relatively latent inside the cell. According to Robert Kruse of Biotechr,
An elegant solution to all these problems would be to simply cut the HIV genome out of the host cell, whereafter it forms episomal DNA that is lost with cell division. With the rise of CRISPR, one solution has been to use Cas9 to cut HIV out of the genome, as demonstrated here and here. A similar strategy has used TALENs to edit HIV from the genome. Just a couple weeks ago, a paper was published online showed in vivo administration of an AAV expressing Cas9 and gRNA could remove HIV sequences in a transgenic HIV mouse model where the target was in every chromosome, in a fraction of the lymphocytes and cells of other organs. However, the strategy has a number of limitations.
Click here to read more about research into novel HIV therapies
While we are still along way before persons living with HIV/AIDS can truly benefit from novel therapies such as gene editing, we are getting better at it with each day. Who knows what this may lead too, and new treatments are just on the horizon.
Avin is a person living with HIV and the webmaster of this awesome site and has been working with AFA to raise the awareness of living with HIV/AIDS in Singapore and assisting other persons living with HIV. Following Mr. Paddy Chew, he is only the second Singaporean living with HIV who has come out publicly.
Songkran starts this week and many of us will be travelling up to Bangkok for this wonderful and fun festival. Here are some tips we gathered from seasoned travellers. If you have any tips, add them to the comment section !