Exciting medical breakthrough for sure, Lets assume that this works... A marrow transplant is a BIG deal, this is not a go to the hospital thing, get a new marrow, then leave the next day. it involves:
1) Kill your immune system. This can be bad because well, you generally like your immune system. Also, in the process of killing your immune system, you get a lot of collateral damage to other parts of your body. The mechanism used to kill off your marrow is basically chemotherapy used to kill cancer, but in much higher doses.
2) get a transplant. This step is hard because you need a match. Its also hard because you have NO immune system for a while. People spend at least a month on specialized units in the hospital (and CANNOT leave). The baseline cost of just being in one of these units runs thousands of dollars a day. Think about it like the cost of the nicest suite in a Ritz Carlton.
3) Hope the transplant works. Sometimes it takes, sometimes it doesn't, sometimes the transplant gets all whacky and attacks the host.
4) Lots of isolation, follow-up, doctor visits, tests, etc. Patients are advised to avoid large crowds for periods of up to 6 months, wear a mask outside, basically do lots of things they normally wouldn't do
So how much does that whole process cost? Probably several hundred thousand per person. Its not that the poor African countries cant afford to do this to their people, its that even THIS country would not be able to provide that service to its own. There are tons of obstacles, firstly, even if we could afford it, there just aren't enough bone marrow transplant centers in the US to do this on the scale it would be needed. Second, the patient getting the transplant needs to be able to follow through on months of care. Your average HIV patient isn't going to be able to do this, even if it cures him/her, it takes a large amount of social support and responsibility, the lack thereof which probably resulted in getting AIDS in the first place.
The thing is, we KNOW how to prevent HIV. If we took the cost of AIDS research thus far and invested it in condoms (that were actually used) , the disease would probably be wiped out by now. Seriously, the cure for 99.9% of the cases of this disease involves a 50 cent condom and the avoidance of IV drugs, nothing more. You can probably save cost on the condom part by not sleeping around, but that would be asking too much. What I'm saying is its not all that hard to not get AIDS, and its certainly much easier than getting a fricking bone marrow transplant, the focus should be on prevention, though no one makes a headline for using a condom.
1) Kill your immune system. This can be bad because well, you generally like your immune system. Also, in the process of killing your immune system, you get a lot of collateral damage to other parts of your body. The mechanism used to kill off your marrow is basically chemotherapy used to kill cancer, but in much higher doses.
2) get a transplant. This step is hard because you need a match. Its also hard because you have NO immune system for a while. People spend at least a month on specialized units in the hospital (and CANNOT leave). The baseline cost of just being in one of these units runs thousands of dollars a day. Think about it like the cost of the nicest suite in a Ritz Carlton.
3) Hope the transplant works. Sometimes it takes, sometimes it doesn't, sometimes the transplant gets all whacky and attacks the host.
4) Lots of isolation, follow-up, doctor visits, tests, etc. Patients are advised to avoid large crowds for periods of up to 6 months, wear a mask outside, basically do lots of things they normally wouldn't do
So how much does that whole process cost? Probably several hundred thousand per person. Its not that the poor African countries cant afford to do this to their people, its that even THIS country would not be able to provide that service to its own. There are tons of obstacles, firstly, even if we could afford it, there just aren't enough bone marrow transplant centers in the US to do this on the scale it would be needed. Second, the patient getting the transplant needs to be able to follow through on months of care. Your average HIV patient isn't going to be able to do this, even if it cures him/her, it takes a large amount of social support and responsibility, the lack thereof which probably resulted in getting AIDS in the first place.
The thing is, we KNOW how to prevent HIV. If we took the cost of AIDS research thus far and invested it in condoms (that were actually used) , the disease would probably be wiped out by now. Seriously, the cure for 99.9% of the cases of this disease involves a 50 cent condom and the avoidance of IV drugs, nothing more. You can probably save cost on the condom part by not sleeping around, but that would be asking too much. What I'm saying is its not all that hard to not get AIDS, and its certainly much easier than getting a fricking bone marrow transplant, the focus should be on prevention, though no one makes a headline for using a condom.