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HIV treatment has changed so dramatically that a diagnosis today can look completely different from what it meant a few decades ago. With effective antiretroviral therapy, people living with HIV can suppress the virus, protect their immune system and live long, healthy lives. ART doesn’t remove HIV from the body. Instead, it stops the virus from making new copies of itself. For most people taking treatment as prescribed, the amount of virus can fall to an undetectable level, often within six months. Treatment must continue because HIV can rebound if medication is stopped. And there is another extraordinary part of this progress: U=U, or “Undetectable = Untransmittable.” Large studies have established that someone who maintains an undetectable viral load has zero risk of transmitting HIV to a sexual partner. This has transformed HIV treatment into one of our most powerful forms of HIV prevention as well. So the important distinction is that HIV still has no widely available cure, but modern medicine has turned it from an infection that once commonly progressed to AIDS and early death into a manageable chronic condition for people who can access and remain on effective treatment. It’s one of the biggest medical transformations of the last few decades: not eliminating the virus, but learning how to control it so effectively that people can remain healthy while also preventing sexual transmission.Source: CDC, HIV.gov, World Health Organization and NIH.