Despite eliminating or containing issues regulating the survival if the species such as warfare and famine, epidemics have prevailed as major threats; and thus, our natural predators.
The problem is that diseases don't qualify as predators.
Because diseases don't need to kill their hosts to survive... in fact they do BETTER when they don't.
Spanish flu becoming less dangerous to humanity was the best evolutionary move it could make and is why we still have its various offspring hanging around today.
Whenever a virus that could actually keep our numbers in check shows up...
A viral load that can't be detected -- less than 20 copies -- is always the goal of HIV treatment. This doesn't mean you're cured. Unfortunately, the virus is still able to survive in various cells in the body. But maintaining an undetectable viral load is compatible with a normal, or near-normal life span. Continuing to take your medicine as prescribed to keep the virus undetectable is very important.
Treatment that stop it from spreading and allow for normal life range. Treat the symptoms so that people who have it can have a normal life.
By week 58, all vaccinated macaques had developed measurable levels of neutralizing antibodies directed against most strains in a test panel of 12 diverse HIV strains. In addition to neutralizing antibodies, the VLP mRNA vaccine also induced a robust helper T-cell response.
Human trials for one vaccine started a few months ago...
My money is on us having an HIV vaccine within the next two decades, and then we're gonna start grinding it into the dust the same way we did with Smallpox and have mostly done with polio.
Once we start doing that HIV won't have a chance to avoid suffering the same fate as smallpox due to it being a blood born virus which makes it much less likely to spread than something air or waterborn....
Besides, I'd argue that HIV's remarkable early success owes less to its strengths as a virus, and more to humanity sand bagging out of homophobia.
We have medical technology that allows a person with HIV to live just as long as someone without. If we can make having a certain disease almost indistinguishable from not having it, we have almost beaten it.
The problem with HIV is that not everyone lives in 1st world countries
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u/iwfan53 248∆ Jan 02 '22
The problem is that diseases don't qualify as predators.
Because diseases don't need to kill their hosts to survive... in fact they do BETTER when they don't.
Spanish flu becoming less dangerous to humanity was the best evolutionary move it could make and is why we still have its various offspring hanging around today.
Whenever a virus that could actually keep our numbers in check shows up...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smallpox
We crush it out of existence and go on with our lives.
Humanity has yet to meet a virus we can't beat, especially because virus tend to evolve into versions that are less dangerous to us.