To this day it still terrifies me, even though the treatments have become so good.
Each year it seems there are new stories about HIV research, and progress keeps being made. I pray for positive results and am really amazed. We have a lot to be thankful for.
A cure for AIDS is almost like a cure for cancer, or fusion power. It's one of those technological miracles you thought maybe wouldn't ever come.
Or the Pill, or the Bomb.
(I know antivirals have advanced tremendously, but very few people would choose to be stuck on those. Also the progress was gradual enough that it didn't really affect straight peoples' consciousness. For most, AIDS remained a scary threat on the horizon, persistently uncured, still an eventual death sentence.)
So, this is wonderful news.
I don't think it will actually affect culture very much though. Straight people still worry about pregnancy. People are generally more cautious than they used to be. And the sexual counterrevolution is in full force.
But still. It'll be wonderful to close the chapter on AIDS. And it's inspiring that these long-term projects can eventually pan out.
I think HIV is probably only one of the reasons the developed nations cared about pushing contraception in the developing world. If that fear rather than education goes I think some regions will see population explosions...
At least for HPV there’s a vaccine though.
* Herpes vaccine - 10 different ones in development.[1]
* Hepatitis C - difficult, and several vaccines have been developed that didn't work.[2] Drug treatments are effective, at last, but started at $80,000 and are now down below $30,000 in the US.
[1] https://www.precisionvaccinations.com/vaccines/herpes-vaccin...
[2] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/labs/pmc/articles/PMC8402855/