HIV reservoirs are places or cells in the body where the HIV virus persists beyond the reach of retroviral drugs and other medications.
Most of these systems identified by researchers have long-lived immune cells that have been infected by the virus, but there are probably more that we have not yet identified.
Some of the known places where infections persist are the central nervous system, the brain, and systems of the body with CD4+ T lymphocytes, but it is likely that stem cells and macrophages could also be areas where the disease can persist in latent infections.
There have been many drastic improvements and milestones in HIV treatment and prevention, but we are nowhere close to having a cure.
AIDS is no longer a death sentence, and many people live with the virus for decades and enjoy a good quality of life.
We even have ways to keep the virus from passing on from an infected mother to her fetus.
Education and prevention have worked wonders, but even with all the drugs, research, and prevention, it is estimated that over seven thousand new HIV infections happen every day throughout the world.
There are also more than thirty three million people living with AIDS worldwide.
These are astonishing numbers, and something has to be done.
Finding and treating HIV reservoirs may be the next great breakthrough in HIV treatment, and may even provide a cure.
This is not small challenge, however.
Even one infected cell lingering in the body in one of these backwater areas is enough to reignite an infection after treatment is done.
That begs the question of how doctors can even know if the virus is completely eradicated, much less if it is even possible to eradicate the virus completely in the first place.
The currently available research tells us shockingly little about viral replication in tissues, yet we know that this is an area that needs vast research.
It is known that HIV breeds at the tissue level, in places like the tissues of the gut.
We also know that the virus replicates in the brain, and these are areas where medicines can potentially wreak havoc.
Eradicating the virus while preserving the health of the host human is a delicate balance that we have not yet managed to perfect.
While this is daunting, there are some promising leads.
First of all, early detection and treatment may be a crucial factor in the long-term health of the patient.
Up to fifteen percent of infected patients are able to achieve full remission and completely cease their prescription drug dependency if the treatment is started early enough.
Research into why and how this happens might offer huge gains in successful treatment of the disease.
Secondly, several research labs and pharmaceutical companies are working on drugs that will specifically target and purge reservoirs.
One offshoot of this research is in isolating and shrinking the strongholds, thereby allowing manual surgical removal of infected tissues.
This could create an entirely new paradigm for treating HIV.
Third, researchers are exploring the feasibility of sabotaging the HIV virus with genetic medicine, creating beneficial mutations in the virus itself.
While this may sound like science fiction, it may be closer to reality than we realize.
Whatever the case may be, these new areas of research do offer promise, even if distant.
Identifying and eliminating HIV reservoirs may be our best chance at finding a cure.