Currently, there is still no cure of HIV and AIDS. The infection can be treated and prevented. There many drug design proposal with great promise. However, prevention options is still very narrow in comparison to the diverse genetic phylogeny of HIV subtypes. HIV of different subtypes have different main routes of transmission. Therefore, prevention methods should lean towards being more practical and accessible as well as efficient. There are many drug design proposals out there that I have found to be promising.

Because HIV is a retrovirus that is capable of integrating its genetic information into the human host DNA, reverse transcriptase inhibitors can prevent integration. There are several drugs on the market that utilizes reverse transcriptase inhibition. One example is, azidothymidine (AZT) or Azidothymidine triphosphate has a much higher binding affinity to HIV reverse transcriptase than to the human DNA polymerase ( P A Furman et al. 1896). While this drug does work for many HIV subtypes, it does the its job once the HIV have already entered the host cell.

Since different subtypes of HIV-1 have different preference of transmissions, the routes of administration of the drug could contribute to efficiency. HIV subtype E mostly transmit via heterosexual sex . Lactobacilli species native to the vaginal flora can be genetically modified with genes that expresses an antiviral protein that stays secured on its surface (Liu 2008). For example,  Ibalizumab is an anti-CD4 antibody that only blocks the HIV attachment but does not interfere with the immune function of CD4 T cells ( Freeman et al 2010). This added characteristic can facilitate our own human flora to create a biofilm that protects the vaginal mucosal membrane, a site of exposure to HIV for females, from the attachment of the virus. While humans as hosts cannot evolve as fast as viruses, humans can compensate by utilizing Principles of Exclusion within the microbial world, virus versus bacteria to compete with viruses.