No, not make them better, but there is an interesting story here which I heard when I attended a lecture at my job researching HIV. HIV-1 is the "HIV" we all k

No, not make them better, but there is an interesting story here which I heard when I attended a lecture at my job researching HIV. HIV-1 is the "HIV" we all know and fear. While HIV-1 was derived/evolved from SIV (simian immunodeficiency virus), it's actually not as similar to SIV as HIV-2, another strain. HIV-2 is far less dangerous and transmissible in comparison to HIV-1, and doesn't exist in large quantities outside of sub-Saharan Africa. Critically, there is some new research which shows that infection with HIV-2 first provides a substantial amount of protection against later infection by HIV-1. People who were infected with HIV-2 before being infected with HIV-1 had lower viral loads and slowed disease progression in comparison to people who were infected with HIV-1 alone. This lead the researcher giving the talk to state the extremely stunning (yet perhaps true) fact: "HIV-2 is the best vaccine against HIV-1 that we have."