[Gigachad]

>a lifelong illness

Another thing to consider is it isn't a life long illness anymore. It's a life long subscription to a drug which neutralizes the threat and lets you live an entirely normal life without any problems other than having to take the drug periodically forever.

Certainly not ideal but its not like you suffer illness.

[throwaway329183]

I see the point but you could argue the same for nicotine dependence, diabetes, depression & anxiety, vision problems, allergies, etc.

Maybe you can't afford the treatment, maybe you have side effects, maybe you don't know you need it...

[Gigachad]

Most of these things the medication only helps some amount. For HIV it's meant to be 100% effective and makes it undetectable to testing. All active HIV is killed and only inactive HIV remains but inactive HIV doesn't harm you, it only seeds a new active infection.

And in most countries the treatment is funded by the government.