That would be really great! It’s a dream you know. Whether this dream will be transformed into reality, it is difficult to say in advance. I think it’s going to be very difficult because that means that we have to make tremendous progress to reach people who are HIV-positive, to test people everywhere in the world, and to also make progress in countries where there are still repressive measures against people living with HIV. For me, it’s always best to set a very high and ambitious objective because that’s how you will get as close as possible to it. So in my view, I’m not really sure that we will meet this objective of ending AIDS by 2030, but at least we will have tried our very best to reach it.
As for a cure, that depends on the definition of a cure. If it means a total elimination of the virus from the body, meaning that it is possible for someone who is HIV-positive to become HIV-negative, this is again an almost impossible mission, at least today, with the technology, knowledge, and approach that we have. However, maybe in one, three or five years from now, we will have new technologies that will allow us to make tremendous progress to be able to detect all the reservoirs in the body and to target a single latently infected cell in the body. In that case, we will be able - if we target all the latently infected cells - to eliminate the virus. Today, we just don’t know how to do that yet.
However, what I am very optimistic about is achieving sustainable remission after stopping treatment. This is really something that is feasible - I am totally convinced.