Treatment for HIV Infections

HIV infections can cause weight loss, fever, night sweats, rash of chest and upper body, loss of appetite, fatigue. In more serious cases the symptoms can progress to AIDS, opportunistic infections and may result in death.\n

HIV patients who have not received cART may opt to be treated with highly active antiretroviral therapy (HAART) with integrase inhibitors. Those who receive cART are most commonly treated with protease inhibitors. A minority of patients may choose to receive HAART containing integrase inhibitors.

In the past 30 years the incidence of HIV infections and AIDS have been increasing. HIV infections are more common in the United States and Europe. The number of new, AIDS-related infections has been decreasing in the United States and Europe from 1987 to 1999. HIV-infected individuals in the United States and Europe are living longer and are often in good health. In 1999, an estimated 2 million Americans with HIV/AIDS and an estimated 1 million Americans with AIDS and its related illnesses were in prolonged active disease. It is important to know that if you are a current or former user of public health service you have a higher risk of developing HIV infection than someone who has never used public health service.

The most common routes of infection with HIV are homosexual and heterosexual intercourse. Drugs such as cocaine, heroin, marijuana, and alcohol are associated with increased risk behaviours, which can in turn lead to the transmission of HIV by contact with infected blood or bodily fluids, through sharing needles or by unprotected oral, anal or pharyngeal sex. HIV also may be transmitted by blood transfusion, or from an infected mother to her baby during pregnancy or during childbirth. There are no vaccines for HIV. Those living with HIV are treated with antiretroviral drugs, such as anti-HIV drugs, which can reduce them to a undetectable disease. Most people with HIV do not progress to full-blown AIDS.

HIV infections can be cured by medications, but not all infections in all patients. To discover which patients are eligible you can use any of many HIV clinical trials.(http://clinicaltrials.gov/cdrh/show/NCT00394539%20?review=Reno&view=status&view=RCT!) This can take some time to do, but not much. To do this, search by condition (such as lymphoid cancer or an AIDS-defining illness) in Power.

The number of newly acquired HIV infections in the United States is approximately 26,000. It is estimated that another 22,900 men acquire HIV while receiving treatment for drug abuse or have concurrent infectious diseases. HIV is transmitted primarily by infected injecting drug users and is spread primarily through unprotected sex with someone infected with HIV. Of those with a newly acquired HIV infection, nearly half (46 percent) are unaware of their HIV status. HIV disproportionately affects black men, men who inject drugs, men who have sex with men, and gay and bisexual men, particularly gay and bisexual men who have sex with men (GMSM). HIV disproportionately affects women who have sex with women and uninfected women.

In the United States, a wide-ranging public health need exists for the testing of new medicines. Despite a great emphasis on clinical trials in other therapeutic areas, limited work has been published on evaluating the potential value of such testing for HIV. This work has highlighted gaps in the current HIV clinical trials and has highlighted a need to determine appropriate eligibility criteria for hiv clinical trials. Data from a recent study of the study reported here suggest that a greater emphasis on HIV testing and entry into clinical trials will likely result in innovative treatments and potentially a significantly diminished incidence of HIV and a greater quality of life for persons with HIV.

Recent findings of this study provide evidence for the genetic influence and familial mode of transmission of HIV antibody positivity among US Caucasian males. The findings suggest that a substantial proportion of hiv-positive HIV-infected sexual contact men may transmit HIV to their spouses.

This analysis provides a comprehensive overview of the safety of ART initiation among HIV-infected children and youth in Ontario. The quality of data used and methods to assess ART safety are consistent with those used by other pediatric HIV treatment cohorts. The current practice of only requiring antiretroviral therapy initiation within the first year of life is supported but more research is needed to better understand the benefits and risks of treatment given to HIV-infected children who present in early infancy.

Treatment may be helpful in those with early HIV disease symptoms such as fatigue and cognitive difficulties. However, routine antiviral treatments are only really beneficial in people with advanced HIV disease, due to their high cost and limited benefits. We need to do more research on how to most effectively treat common symptoms and signs in the early stages of the disease - it is our best hope for improving the quality of life and survival of people with HIV.

There are ongoing discoveries happening in order to find ways of curing the disease that hIV infection causes, but these are still early-phase studies, and more research has to be done before any type of therapy can be used on human test subjects. There are new medicines on the way, and although there are ongoing trials using these new medicines, we should keep the possibility of a cure in mind.\n