[wyager]

HSV is, iirc, one of the most significant causes of serious conditions like viral encephalitis. I wouldn’t be surprised if the net impact were similar to or greater than an HIV cure, considering that about 5,000x more people have HSV than HIV (order of magnitude estimate from a quick look at some stats I found online). Of course, the PR of an HIV cure is much better.

[ruined]

hsv encephalitis incidence is like 2 per million which is absolutely incomparable to hiv infection which has rates as much as 1 in 5 in some high risk populations and 4930 per million globally. the net impact of a new effective hiv treatment is indisputably more significant.

[wyager]

> hsv encephalitis incidence is like 2 per million

This can’t possibly be correct. It’s the most commonly diagnosed etiology for viral encephalitis, which definitely occurs more than a single digit per million. It’s also going to be underdiagnosed because the diagnostics are bad (fewer than half of encephalitis cases are assigned an etiology). I see several sources saying in the range of 2-4,000 confirmed HSV encephalitis cases per year in the US (which are usually extremely severe, leading to brain damage or death), compared to 5,500 “HIV-related” deaths per year in the US according to the CDC. So at the very least they seem similar in magnitude.