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Treatment of HIV starts with prevention. Preventive measures include seeking regular medical care throughout the lifetime. Regular medical care allows a health care professional to best evaluate symptoms and the risks of catching HIV and regularly test for it as needed. These measures greatly increase your chances of catching and treating HIV in its earliest stages before serious complications occur.
Other preventive measures include abstaining from sexual activity or having sex only within a mutually monogamous relationship in which neither partner is infected with HIV. Latex condoms also provide some protection against HIV when used properly. It is also important not to share needles with other people.
HIV is not curable, but prompt diagnosis and treatment can help to reduce or delay the onset of serious complications, improve the quality of life, and minimize the spread of the disease to others. Treatment generally includes drugs called antiretroviral medications. These include protease inhibitors and reverse transcriptase inhibitors. These drugs hinder the ability of HIV to reproduce, which results in a slowing of the spread of HIV in the body. The use of antiretroviral medications can help people with HIV to lead longer lives.
Treatment also includes regular monitoring and prompt diagnosis and treatment of complications, such as meningitis or opportunistic infections. Hospitalization is often necessary to treat serious complications.
The list of treatments mentioned in various sources for HIV/AIDS includes the following list. Always seek professional medical advice about any treatment or change in treatment plans.
The first step in getting correct treatment is to get a correct diagnosis. Differential diagnosis list for HIV/AIDS may include:
Products, offers and promotion categories available for HIV/AIDS:
Possibly curable types of HIV/AIDS may include:
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Note:You must always seek professional medical advice about any prescription drug, OTC drug, medication, treatment or change in treatment plans.
Some of the different medications used in the treatment of HIV/AIDS include:
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The following medical news items are relevant to treatment of HIV/AIDS:
NIAID investigators are defining the best treatments for pediatric patients. Currently there are 16 drug products approved by the FDA for the treatment of adult HIV infection. Through major contributions by the Pediatric ACTG, 10 antiretroviral agents have pediatric label information, including 3 protease inhibitors.28 While the basic principles that guide treatment of pediatric HIV infection are the same as for any HIV-infected person, there are a number of unique scientific and medical concerns that are important to consider in the treatment of children with HIV infection. These range from differences from adults in age-related issues such as CD4 lymphocyte counts and drug metabolism to requirements for special formulations and treatment regimens that are appropriate for infants through adolescents. As in adults, treatment of HIV-infected children today is a complex task of using potent combinations of antiretroviral agents to maximally suppress viral replication. (Source: excerpt from Backgrounder -- HIV Infection in Infants and Children: NIAID)
When AIDS first surfaced in
the United States, there were no medicines to combat the underlying
immune deficiency and few treatments existed for the opportunistic
diseases that resulted. Over the past 10 years, however, researchers
have developed drugs to fight both HIV infection and its associated
infections and cancers.
The U.S. Food and Drug
Administration (FDA) has approved a number of drugs for treating HIV
infection. The first group of drugs used to treat HIV infection,
called nucleoside reverse transcriptase (RT) inhibitors, interrupts
an early stage of the virus making copies of itself. Included in
this class of drugs (called nucleoside analogs) are AZT (also known
as zidovudine or ZDV), ddC (zalcitabine), ddI (dideoxyinosine), d4T
(stavudine), and 3TC (lamivudine). These drugs may slow the spread
of HIV in the body and delay the onset of opportunistic infections.
Health care providers can prescribe non-nucleoside reverse
transcriptase inhibitors (NNRTIs), such as delvaridine (Rescriptor),
nevirapine (Viramune), and efravirenz (Sustiva), in combination with
other antiretroviral drugs.
More recently, FDA has approved
a second class of drugs for treating HIV infection. These drugs,
called protease inhibitors, interrupt virus replication at a later
step in its life cycle. They include
Adolescents tend to think they are invincible, and
therefore, to deny any risk. This belief may cause them to engage in
risky behavior, to delay HIV testing, and if they test positive, to
delay or refuse treatment. Doctors report that many young people,
when they learn they are HIV-positive, take several months to accept
their diagnosis and return for treatment. Health care professionals
may be able to help these adolescents by explaining the information
slowly and carefully, eliciting questions from them, and emphasizing
the success of newly available treatments.
The U.S.
Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS) has developed two
documents that address the standard of care for the treatment of
HIV, including information about how to treat HIV in adolescents.
The documents, Guidelines for the Use of Antiretroviral Agents
in HIV-Infected Adults and Adolescents and Guidelines for
the Use of Antiretroviral Agents in Pediatric HIV Infection are
available from the National Prevention Information Network and the
HIV/AIDS Treatment Information Service (telephone numbers are listed
in the resources section). These documents also can be downloaded
from the Internet at http://www.hivatis.org/.
According
to the Guidelines for the Use of Antiretroviral Agents in
HIV-Infected Adults and Adolescents, adolescents who were
exposed to HIV sexually or via injection drug use appear to follow a
clinical course that is more similar to HIV disease in adults than
in children. At this time, most adolescents with sexually acquired
HIV are in a relatively early stage of infection and are ideal
candidates for early intervention. Adolescents who were infected at
birth or via blood products as young children follow a unique
clinical course that may differ from other adolescents and long-term
surviving adults. Health care workers should refer to the treatment
guidelines for detailed information about the treatment of
HIV-infected adolescents. (Source: excerpt from HIV Infection in Adolescents, NIAID Fact Sheet: NIAID)
Sixteen drugs have been approved for treating HIV infection. They are called antiretroviral drugs because they attack HIV, which is a retrovirus. Once inside the cell, HIV uses specific enzymes to survive. Antiretroviral drugs work by interfering with the virus' ability to use these enzymes. They fall into two categories.
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| Nucleoside/Nucleotide RT Inhibitors
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Non-nucleoside RT Inhibitors
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Protease Inhibitors
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Do antiretroviral drugs cure HIV infection?
No, the currently available drugs cannot cure HIV infection. This is because HIV can become resistant to any one drug. Researchers initially attacked this problem by using a combination of antiretroviral drugs to suppress the virus. By combining both RT inhibitors and protease inhibitors, NIAID-supported research groups and drug companies developed the potent and effective combination therapy called highly active antiretroviral therapy or HAART.
Although the use of HAART has greatly reduced the number of deaths due to AIDS, this powerful combination of drugs cannot suppress the virus indefinitely. In addition, while people with HIV are living longer, new medical problems are surfacing. These new problems have not been seen before in people who have been infected with the virus for a long time. (Source: excerpt from Treatment of HIV Infection: NIAID)
Currently, there is no known cure for HIV/AIDS. The best treatment right now seems to be prescription "cocktails," or combinations of prescription drugs. These medications include those for antiviral treatment and other drugs, like oral antifungals to combat yeast infections, which fight diseases that take advantage of the weakened immune response of HIV-infected people. It is also important for HIV-infected women and their physicians to watch for pelvic inflammatory disease or other STDs through screening. Similarly, cervical cancer may be more common and progress more quickly in infected women; for this reason, women with HIV should have Pap Smears twice a year to make sure cancer is detected and treated early. (Source: excerpt from Women and HIV-AIDS: NWHIC)
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