PCR made it easier to see that certain people are infected with HIV.
What seems to be clear to me is that after the primary infection most of the cells die indirectly, but at the later stage, when the viral load is very high, the virus kills a lot of cells directly.
What perhaps should receive more attention is the effect of the treatment on the virus.
As variable as flu is, HIV makes flu look like the Rock of Gibraltar. The virus that causes AIDS is the trickiest pathogen scientists have ever confronted.
When you get your viral load down to zero, you reduce the risk of transmission of HIV by 90 percent.
There are so many different varieties of HIV out there.
The virus that causes AIDS is the trickiest pathogen scientists have ever confronted. It mutates furiously, it has decoys to evade the immune system, it attacks the very cells that are trying to fight it, and it quickly hides itself in your genome.
When you put someone on therapy, you lower the level of virus such that it makes it very difficult for them to infect others.
