President Donald Trump on Tuesday falsely claimed there is an AIDS vaccine before correcting himself to saying there are treatments, as he tied the fight against HIV to the fight against the coronavirus.
Trump meandered into the topic of vaccines during an event where he was announcing his police reform measures in the wake of the death of George Floyd. Trump has long claimed his administration will find a cure for AIDS. There is no cure yet for the HIV virus that causes the disease but there are therapeutics to help treat it.
‘They’ve come up with the AIDS vaccine,’ Trump announced at his event in the Rose Garden before correcting himself to say: ‘They have come up — or the AIDS – you know, there’s various things and now various companies are involved. But the therapeutic for AIDS. AIDS was a death sentence. Now people will live a life with a pill. It’s an incredible thing.’
An estimated 1.1 million people in the United States had HIV at the end of 2016, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. In 2018, 37,832 people received an HIV diagnosis in the United States. HIV and AIDS ‘remain a persistent problem for the United States and countries around the world,’ the CDC says.
President Trump went on to tie the fight against AIDS to the search for a cure to the coronavirus, which has infected more than 2.16 million Americans and killed more than 118,000.
‘I think we’re going to have a very, very good answer to that very, very soon,’ Trump said of when there will be a cure for virus.
He repeated his argument COVID-19 could go away without a cure or vaccine.
‘I always say, even without it, it goes away. But if we had the vaccine, and we will, if we had therapeutic or cure, one thing sort of blends in to the other, it will be a fantastic day. I think that’s going to happen and it’s going to happen very soon,’ he noted.
He said a coronavirus cure was in sight by the end of the year.
‘Before the end of the year, I predict we will have a very successful vaccine, therapeutic and cure. We’re making tremendous progress,’ Trump said.
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