After ready the article Viruses and Human Cancer: From Detection to Causality by Sarid and Gao, my recommendation as a healthcare professional in terms of which HIV strains should be accounted for in a new treatment, I would suggest including HPV strains 31 and 45. Ideally, all strains could be treated, but the cost of such treatment would increase greatly. With that being said, when moving forward with a new treatment, it is important to weigh the cost and benefits. Therefore the benefits should be greater than the cost of the new treatment.
Viruses have the ability to possess oncogenes(cancer genes), and these genes get integrated into normal human genes after a person gets infected with the virus. The Human Papillomavirus(HPV), is defined as a virus that carries oncogenes. Different strains of HPV can be more harmful than some. For example, HPV strains 33, 35, 39, 51, 52, 56, 58, and 59 are likely to be cancerous; however, HPV strains 16, 18, 31, and 45 are known to be highly cancerous, and cause around 80% of cervical cancers in women. With that being said, constructing a treatment for the types of strains that cause more cancer in individuals is more effective than treating the strains that are less likely to be the cause.
Looking at the status of treatments today, the HPV strains 16 and 18 already have a vaccine. The course of action should be to focus on creating a treatment for HPV strains 31 and 45, therefore all highly cancerous strains have a vaccine. Also if a treatment is created for just those two strains it will keep the cost of the vaccine down. Hopefully after the vaccine is available to all women, that the amount of individuals with cervical cancer will become less and less.
