HIV's mutation rate occurs after entry. This is due to the fact that HIV seems utterly incapable of fighting the human body without making itself weak in the process. HIV beats the human immune system by changing itself quicker than the human body can adapt.
It's like one day you're fighting the Nazi's, the next day its the USSR, then it's Mussolini's Italy, then it's Saddam and then some Aztec warriors with machine guns. Each day you're expecting to wake up and see more Nazi's, you're not expecting the Iraqi army. Each of these armies is on the retreat, it's just that they win by attrition because every mutation they have they get to swarm your immune system.
It is true that the virus can spread during this time, it's just far less likely. The drug they're proposing is that they make the HIV virus switch its uniform (surface markers in the biological sense) faster, say every 6 hours. Well the problem with this is that you're potentially going to kill the cells through ware, or you're going to end up with an Aztec-Nazi-Russian (or a HIV virus with multiple surface markers) so you then know to attack all of them.
You're somewhat right, with this kind of drug it's likely only going to benefit us that we're cautious to make sure it doesn't create a new virus. Hopefully the virus will cause the HIV to present multiple surface markers and by this help the body target the virus more efficiently.
It's like one day you're fighting the Nazi's, the next day its the USSR, then it's Mussolini's Italy, then it's Saddam and then some Aztec warriors with machine guns. Each day you're expecting to wake up and see more Nazi's, you're not expecting the Iraqi army. Each of these armies is on the retreat, it's just that they win by attrition because every mutation they have they get to swarm your immune system.
It is true that the virus can spread during this time, it's just far less likely. The drug they're proposing is that they make the HIV virus switch its uniform (surface markers in the biological sense) faster, say every 6 hours. Well the problem with this is that you're potentially going to kill the cells through ware, or you're going to end up with an Aztec-Nazi-Russian (or a HIV virus with multiple surface markers) so you then know to attack all of them.
You're somewhat right, with this kind of drug it's likely only going to benefit us that we're cautious to make sure it doesn't create a new virus. Hopefully the virus will cause the HIV to present multiple surface markers and by this help the body target the virus more efficiently.