The virus responsible for AIDS was discovered on May 20, 1983. Forty years later, society’s view of HIV-positive people is changing in the right direction. However, some still suffer from rejection or fear.
For 38 years, Anne has lived with HIV. “And I’m fine”, she said with a smile. In December 1985, at the age of 21, victim of the tainted blood scandal, she learned the news by a phone call to her place of internship: “I went to the toilet, cried for half an hour and decided that I would never have a child because I didn’t want to infect a child or for a child to lose his mother”. This theater and cinema enthusiast is always very surrounded by her family, her friends, very invested in the Aides association, and in her work as a researcher. Thanks to the treatment, Anne is no longer contaminating, although HIV positive.
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Say it or not? Anne asked herself this question throughout her life: “In 1985, only my parents knew because I didn’t want the rest of my family to change their view of me.“ The other family members finally learned that she was HIV-positive nine years later, “when I was really sick”, she specifies. Anne passed the entrance exam to the National Center for Scientific Research (CNRS). “Then there was a medical visit and there, I did not say itshe says. Because it was in 1993, in the middle of an epidemic, tritherapies had not yet arrived, everyone was dying… I absolutely didn’t want that to affect my work, which I found fascinating. And in the 2000s, I said it.”
Still a lot of discrimination and prejudice
She was transparent with her bank. But 20 years later, Anne has doubts about this loan for an apartment which was suddenly refused to her. “Exactly! And also with the guys. It was hard. Several left when they found out. I put myself in their shoes a bit and I understood them“, she confides. Then over time, she has “a little renounced” to have a love life. “I learned to satisfy myself, very very well. I’m still sexually fulfilled.”
If she met someone today, she wouldn’t tell him “not right away” that she is HIV positive because“there is no risk for my partner”. No risk at all, but prejudices are tenacious. “I have a very recent exampleshe says. I put my fingers to a friend’s baby lips and she had a reaction of rejection. She said ‘watch out’. Anne explained to him that she was not contaminating however. She deplores it, but these reactions are part of her daily life.
“My friend is a scientist, but she was afraid for her baby. It amazes me.”
In 2023, we are still not cured of AIDS but we live with it, almost normally, without transmitting the virus thanks to treatments. This is where the greatest progress has been made. Antiretroviral treatments are lighter: one tablet a day today, up to 16 in the early 2000s. But even if they are lighter, simpler, they must be taken for life, daily. This is the only way to reduce the viral load, to ensure that the HIV-positive person becomes non-contaminating. As long as she is treated and as long as she is treated early, there is no risk to her sexual partners, nor to the baby if the woman becomes pregnant. Let’s say that we neutralize HIV in some way, without being able to eliminate it from the body to date.
In search of a vaccine to cure
Finding a vaccine is the top priority. Seventy-two men are currently taking part in a trial, launched by the French Vaccine Research Institute (IRV). He recently showed that the vaccine is well tolerated, but its clinical efficacy remains to be proven. “Unfortunately, we are now at the same level as at the start, that is to say that we still do not have a vaccine against HIV, but we remain optimistic”, says Professor Jean Daniel Lelièvre, head of the clinical research department at IRV.
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On the other hand, he adds, “We are less optimistic about the deadline because we have a candidate vaccine which had shown 30% efficacy and we have returned to very preliminary phases of development.
“That doesn’t mean we haven’t made progress over the past few years, but it’s unlikely we’ll have a vaccine on the market for at least ten years.”
Daniel Lelièvre, head of the clinical research department at IRVat franceinfo
In the meantime, in terms of prevention in particular, PrEP, the preventive treatment that allows people at risk to avoid infection, remains the most effective solution with the condom. According to Santé Publique France, 180,000 people are living with HIV, and 86% know their HIV status. “There are still 5,000 discoveries of seropositivity each year in France”, lamented on franceinfo Florence Thune, general manager of Sidaction, who believes that we “is still facing several years of research” before finding a vaccine.