| |
The Basics of AIDS Prevention |
| |
Don't have unprotected sex.
Don't use illegal intravenous drugs. If you do, don't share needles.
You can't get HIV from sweat, toilet seats, saliva, tears, shaking hands or hugging.
|
|
|
Common Medication Prescribed
No medications to treat HIV are 100 percent effective, and none can cure you of the virus. The idea is to keep levels of HIV virus as low as possible and to help add years to your life. One challenge is that the virus is constantly mutating. Some experts believe such mutations can lead to drug resistance when you don't strictly follow your doctor's instructions.
People are usually prescribed three different antiretroviral medications to be taken together. At least 78 different medication combinations are available, according to the nonprofit AIDS Treatment Data Network. However, if you develop a resistance to a drug such as AZT, your options can decrease to 39 combinations.
Three-drug combinations, called HAART (highly active anti-retroviral therapy), are a standard treatment for most initial regimens. Twenty anti-HIV drugs, also known as antiretroviral drugs, are available and divided into four main classes: nucleoside/nucleotide reverse transcriptase inhibitors (NRTI), protease inhibitors (PI), entry inhibitors, and non-nucleoside reverse transcriptase inhibitors (NNRTI). Studies show three drug combinations from different classes are the best way to help stop the disease. These drugs fight the virus after it has entered healthy cells.
If your HIV has become resistant to many antiviral medications, your doctor may prescribe enfuvirtide, the first in a new class of drugs called fusion inhibitors (a type of entry inhibitor). This medication helps slow HIV progression in people who have developed drug resistance, but it must be given by injection.
HIV uses a protein in the body called gp41 to fuse with and enter healthy immune cells. Instead of doing what a T cell is supposed to, the cell starts producing and shedding new virus. Once this happens, the HIV-infected cell does not fight infection. Enfuvirtide blocks gp41 and disrupts the structural rearrangement needed to allow the HIV virus to attack the healthy immune cell.
More on AIDS/HIV How Is AIDS Treated?
What Can I Do If I Find Out I'm HIV-Positive?
In the Encyclopedia: Immunodeficiency
Kaposi's sarcoma
AIDS
AIDS tests
Antiretroviral drugs
This article was reviewed and updated June 2007.
|
|
|
