Prof Montagnier who co-discovered the HIV virus that causes AIDS (always worth repeating) warmed in Calgary that HIV prevention should not be forgotten. Montagnier also criticised people’s complacency towards HIV and AIDS:

“It seems that the young generation has forgotten about prevention, because they think there are cures for HIV, that it’s no big deal”

Montagnier’s comments come at a time when treatment as prevention is one of the hottest topics at the 16th Conference on Retrovirus and Opportunistic Infections where two studies have demonstrated that there is a lower risk of HIV infection in serodicordant couples when the HIV positive partner is on treatment and that pre-exposure prophylaxis study in Macaques have shown that ART could prevent some HIV infections.

Montagnier’s message is that “[AIDS] is still a very important disease, and it’s not a chronic disease.” Amanda Chapman, communications analyst for AIDS Calgary, commented that people should control their own actions because they can’t count on scientists making a breakthrough:

“So it’s really risky to say, ‘well, we think science is going to be able to find the answer for us’, when, really, all you have to do is put on a condom.”

Conventional HIV prevention has become a challenge particularly in the developed world where very few will ever know what AIDS is and many have already forgotten what it was. With treatment down to a few pills a day even when on second or third line therapy, AIDS may not be a chronic disease but it looks very much like one.

There is a compelling reason to put prevention back onstage: we know a very good prevention method which is effective in nearly 100% of the case when use consistently and properly: condoms. Regreatbly, condom use is still not a the norm for various cultural and social reasons. The real question is, have we achieved the best we can do when it comes to prevention? If not, how to reframe, rethink and rephrase it?

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