Actually no...in normal cases it takes 7-10 years before people even need drugs to fight the virus...and there are people who are still healthy after 15 plus years and counting on these drugs.
Sure there is no cure and some are becoming drug resistant..(mostly because they don't take the drugs as instructed)...but so far the new AIDS drugs are proving to work extremely well..and new ones are being developed all the time.
And by the way, it doesn't take vast wealth to get these HIV drugs..they are expensive but no more so than many other medical conditions people live with.
Not only the rich..but the poor who are on public assistance can and do receive these drugs.
Im not sure thats real great news. Apologies for sounding so heartless but: The ability to hang around for 15 years, potentially infecting more people, is the downside view.
I happen to just be finishing reading Letters to a young conservative by Dinesh DSouza (great book) and he tells of running polls when he was working on the Dartmouth Review questioning how to deal with AIDS. The vote came up to have a tattoo on the butt of anyone testing positive. Then they ran polls to vote on what the tattoo should say. The winner: "Abandon hope, all ye who enter" (poking fun at The Left was made into great sport at Dartmouth Review)
These drugs are extremely expensive and obviously people with AIDS don't pay from their own pocket. Everyone pays, in the form of higher insurance or taxes. Meanwhile, people with AIDS can keep giving it to other people. I mean, who gives AIDS to people - those with AIDS or those without AIDS???